Initial Conditions Of Radiative Shock Experiments

We performed experiments at the Omega Laser Facility to characterize the initial, laser-driven state of a radiative shock experiment. These experiments aimed to measure the shock breakout time from a thin, laser-irradiated Be disk. The data are then used to inform a range of valid model parameters, such as electron flux limiter and polytropic gamma, used when simulating radiative shock experiments using radiation hydrodynamics codes. The characterization experiment and the radiative shock experiment use a laser irradiance of similar to 7 x 10(14) W cm(-2) to launch a shock in the Be disk. A velocity interferometer and a streaked optical pyrometer were used to infer the amount of time for the shock to move through the Be disk. The experimental results were compared with simulation results from the Hyades code, which can be used to model the initial conditions of a radiative shock system using the CRASH code. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.