Frontier Science Working Groups
Laboratory Astrophysics and Planetary Physics (LAPP)
LAPP explores the physics of extreme pressures and temperatures that exist deep within stars and planets. OPAL’s laser systems will replicate these extreme conditions in the lab, helping scientists study exotic states of matter, such as warm dense plasmas and solid hydrogen at high pressures.
This research could unlock answers to longstanding questions about planetary formation and the behavior of matter in extreme environments.
FLAGSHIP EXPERIMENT
Ultrafast Laboratory Astrophysics and Planetary Physics
The LAPP Community seeks to combine three cutting-edge capabilities offered by NSF OPAL: dynamic compression, impulsive heating, and ultrafast probing.
Three stages of experiments lead to the flagship experiment:
- NSF-OPAL Alpha short-pulse beams will be activated at 1ω and 2ω to create laser-produced relativistic pair plasmas in a new intensity regime
- Dense plasma spectroscopy experiments will be performed where the NFS-OPAL Alpha beams will be used to isochorically heat shock- and ramp-compressed targets to explore a wide range of temperatures and densities using high-resolution x-ray emission and absorption spectroscopy
- The OMEGA EP long-pulse UV beams will be activated to ramp-compress planetary materials (ex. SiO2, H2O, Fe) to conditions inside the cores of planets.
This staged approach will lead to the flagship capability to shock and ramp-compress these planetary materials to terapascal pressures and use the femtosecond PW beams to create ultrafast probes for time-resolved x-ray and electron diffraction, radiography/phase contrast imaging, and x-ray emission and absorption spectroscopy to identify structural and electronic phase transitions and unravel their nonequilibrium dynamics.
These experiments will answer key questions spanning the existence of exotic low temperature quantum phases to the high-temperature plasma opacity of stellar components at high-energy-density conditions.
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