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K.A. Keilty, E.P Liang (Rice U.), T.R. Ditmire, B.A. Remington, K. Shigemori (LLNL), A.M. Rubenchik (UC, Davis)
We simulate experiments being done on the Falcon laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to generate strong, cylindrically diverging blast waves of relevance to astrophysics. In particular, we are interested in producing and modeling radiative shocks. We compare numerical simulations with the data and with an analytical approximation to blast wave propogation with a radiative loss term included. (This approximation is also included for the spherically symmetric case.) Our goal is to develop a laboratory setting for studying radiative shocks of relevance to supernova remnants, gamma-ray burst afterglows and other high-energy astrophysics phenomena. We will show that a good degree of agreement exists between the experimental data and the numerical simulations, demonstrating that it is indeed possible to generate radiative shocks in the lab using table-top picosecond lasers. In addition, we show how we can determine the energy loss rate from the blast wave evolution. This analytic method is not related to the exact mechanism of radiative cooling and is scalable to both the lab and astrophysical radiative blast waves.
This research was partially supported by LLNL contract number B344547.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: keilty@spacsun.rice.edu