P. Ni

Present and future perspectives for high energy density physics with intense heavy ion and laser beams

Intense heavy ion beams from the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung ~GSI, Darmstadt, Germany! accelerator facilities, together with two high energy laser systems: petawatt high energy laser for ion experiments ~PHELIX! and nanosecond high energy laser for ion experiments ~NHELIX! are a unique combination to facilitate pioneering beam-plasma interaction experiments, to generate and probe high-energy-density ~HED! matter and to address basic physics issues associated with heavy ion driven inertial confinement fusion. In one class of experiments, the laser will be used to generate plasma and the ion beam will be used to study the energy loss of energetic ions in ionized matter, and to probe the physical state of the laser-generated plasma. In another class of experiments, the intense heavy ion beam will be employed to create a sample of HED matter and the laser beam, together with other diagnostic tools, will be used to explore the properties of these exotic states of matter. The existing heavy ion synchrotron facility, SIS18, deliver an intense uranium beam that deposit about 1 kJ0g specific energy in solid matter. Using this beam, experiments have recently been performed where solid lead foils had been heated and a brightness temperature on the order of 5000 K was measured, using a fast multi-channel pyrometer that has been developed jointly by GSI and IPCP Chernogolovka. It is expected that the future heavy ion facility, facility for antiprotons and ion research ~FAIR! will provide compressed beam pulses with an intensity that exceeds the current beam intensities by three orders of magnitude. This will open up the possibility to explore the thermophysical and transport properties of HED matter in a regime that is very difficult to access using the traditional methods of shock compression. Beam plasma interaction experiments using dense plasmas with a G-parameter between 0.5 and 1.5 have also been carried out. This dense Ar-plasma was generated by explosively driven shockwaves and showed enhanced energy loss for Xe and Ar ions in the energy range between 5.9 to 11.4 MeV.

Electrical resistivity measurements of heavy ion beam generated high energy density aluminium

The high intensity heavy ion beams provided by the accelerator facilities of the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung (GSI) Darmstadt are an excellent tool to produce large volumes of high energy density (HED) matter. Thermophysical and transport properties of HED matter states are of interest for fundamental as well as for applied research. In this paper we present the most recent results on electrical resistivity of HED matter obtained at the High Temperature Laboratory of the Plasma Physics Department of GSI. The targets under investigation consisted of 5 mm long and 0.25 mm diameter aluminium wires. Uranium beam pulses with durations of approximately 200 ns, intensities of about 2 × 109 ions/bunch and an initial ion energy of 350 A MeV have been used as a driver. An energy density deposition of about 1 kJ g−1 has been achieved by focussing the ion beam to less than 1 mm FWHM. Under these conditions, resistivities of up to 1.5 × 10−6 Ω m have been observed within 1 µs after irradiation.

Design, development, and testing of non-intercepting profile diagnostics for intense heavy ion beams using a capacitive pickup and beam induced gas fluorescence monitors

An intense and focused heavy ion beam is a suitable tool to generate high energy density in matter. To compare results with simulations it is essential to know beam parameters as intensity, longitudinal, and transversal profile at the focal plane. Since the beams energy deposition will melt and evaporate even tungsten, non-intercepting diagnostics are required. Therefore a capacitive pickup with high resolution in both time and space was designed, built and tested at the high temperature experimental area at GSI. Additionally a beam induced fluorescence monitor was investigated for the synchrotrons (SIS-18) energy-regime (60–750 AMeV) and successfully tested in a beam-transfer-line.

Proposed studies of strongly coupled plasmas at the future FAIR and LHC facilities: the HEDgeHOB collaboration

Detailed theoretical studies have shown that intense heavy-ion beams that will be generated at the future Facility for Antiprotons and Ion Research (FAIR) (Henning 2004 Nucl. Instrum. Methods B 214 211) at Darmstadt will be a very efficient tool to create high-energy-density (HED) states in matter including strongly coupled plasmas. In this paper we show, with the help of two-dimensional numerical simulations, the interesting physical states that can be achieved considering different beam intensities using zinc as a test material. Another very interesting experiment that can be performed using the intense heavy-ion beam at FAIR will be generation of low-entropy compression of a test material such as hydrogen that is enclosed in a cylindrical shell of a high-Z material such as lead or gold. In such an experiment, one can study the problem of hydrogen metallization and the interiors of giant planets. Moreover, we discuss an interesting method to diagnose the HED matter that is at the centre of the Sun. We have also carried out simulations to study the damage caused by the full impact of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) beam on a superconducting magnet. An interesting outcome of this study is that the LHC beam can induce HED states in matter.