HiPER the potential to drive laser nuclear physics David Neely for the HiPER team STFC, Central Lase

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HiPER the potential to drivelaser nuclear
physics David Neely (for the HiPER team)STFC,
Central Laser Facility, RAL, UKDepartment of
Physics, University of StrathclydeTRENTO
Italy 23-27th June 2008
d.neely_at_rl.ac.uk www.clf.rl.ac.uk www.h
iper-laser.org
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Talk outline

• The HiPER project
• Base line delivery
• Options of interest to Nuclear Physics
• Nuclear diagnostics for HiPER
• Conclusion

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Fast Ignition approach to laser fusion
Fast Ignition approach of HiPER provides the
bridge between laser fusion demonstration (NIF,
LMJ) and the route to power production
Ignite the fuel directly using e-beam, ion-beam
or KE from multi-PW laser interaction

• Significantly smaller (cheaper) capital plant
  investment
• System model predicts cheaper electricity
• Allows academia industry to take lead role
• Unique capabilities for a broad science
  programme
• Needs coordinated research on emerging
  facilities to prove the concept

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Nuclear physics particle source

• Fast Ignition shot would produce
• 30 MJ of energy
• 22 MJ of 14 MeV neutrons (1019 in 10-10 sec)
• Isotropic distribution

• Lawson Criteria rt1014
• Inertial Confinement Fusion Density
  1025 cm-3 Confinement time 10 picoseconds

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Study the basis for a revolutionary neutron
scattering source
1000x brighter than ISIS
Taylor et al., Science 2007
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Project timeline for HiPER

• 2-year conceptual design phase (2005,6)
• Included on European roadmap (Oct 06)
• UK endorsement coordinators (Jan 07)
• Bid for next phase to EC and national Govts (May
  07)
• Preparatory phase Project start (Apr 08)

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Staged approach towards HiPER agreed

• A single approach to IFE within Europe has been
  defined
• Common strategic theme, with phased facility
  development
• PETAL Integration of PW and high energy
  beamlines
• HiPER High yield facility
• Coordinated scientific and technology development
  between the major European laser laboratories
  (e.g. Vulcan, LULI, PALS, )

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Baseline specifications

• Implosion energy
• 200 kJ in 5ns
• 10 m chamber
• 3w?

2. PW beamlines gt70kJ in 10ps 2w
(how?)

• 3. Parallel development
• of IFE building blocks
• Target manufacture
• DPSSL laser
• Reactor designs

• This is a conceptual design only
• We need to establish an increased repetition
  rate design
• We need to build capability to ensure effective
  use of HiPER
• ? Intermediate demonstrators are important
• Target physics and technology (PETAL)
• The route to high repetition rate (beamline)

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Choosing the best option

• NIF/LMJ laser architecture is a straightforward
  option, but both the science and energy
  programmes would benefit from higher repetition
  rate
• Long term reactor demonstrators
• What is the appropriate stage for HiPER?
• Repetition rate technically desirable, but it
  adds
• Cost
• Complexity
• Delay
• Which approach is acceptable to our funding
  agencies?
• We shall see

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Delivering the short pulse

• Large telescope already use multi element
  approach
• Phased beam delivery ?
• Debris protection
• Power handling options
• Operational lifetime

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Chamber wall developments

• Thin layer
• Under load (vessel in a vessel in primary
  chamber)
• Porous material development and testing
• Debris neutron (multi KJ test chamber _at_ Hz)
• Dry Wall - Sombrero
• Test panel in primary chamber
• Debris, shock neutron loading (multi KJ test
  chamber _at_ Hz)
• Thick wall (flowing) PbLi -FLiBe
• Formation of jet-simulation
• Evaporation during shot- where does it go?

KOYO
Neutron and debris effects Activation, damage,
erosion, sputtering We need test facility and
modelling
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Driver requirements
Primary HiPER driver beams of little direct
nuclear physics interest
Recent sensitivity modelling (Atzeni, Honrubia et
al)
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e-delivery (Honrubia Atzeni studies)

• Indicates
• 200 kJ implosion laser
• 70 100 kJ ignition laser
• Assuming
• cone to blob 100 mm
• divergence 30º half-angle
• fl 0.4 mm
• we can believe these codes

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Delivery capability ?

• Cost/benefit analysis between
• Single shot provide EU academia with
  international competitive capability
• Few shots per day
• High repetition rate establish next
  generation capability following on from NIF/LMJ
• Hertz operation in bursts of N shots where
  10ltNlt100
• Some of N shots to be high yield DT
• Burst mode every 6 months

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FI drive beam options

• Delivery of 10 ps, 1 mm laser drive beam (10PW)
• To minimise Il2 requires operation at 2w (or 3w?)
• Intensity on target 2x1020 Wcm-2
• Need 70KJ on target
• 40 mm spot size
• Use of long focal length optics for isolation?
• Technological solution
• Ndglass Bandwidth limited 4 nm
• OPCPA geometry 50 nm
• Are there advantages to increased bandwidth ?
• Fusion experimental area reconfigure to 200 PW
• Nuclear physics interest as particle source

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Multiple Interaction areas required

• High gain fusion chamber 200 KJ long 100 KJ
  short single and burst
  mode
• Flexible science area 100kJ long 100kJ
  short Hertz operation
  shot on demand
  up to 10,000 shots per year
• Cluster configuration?
• High repetition rate beamline fusion
  technology/diagnostics development
  1-10 KJ _at_ Hertz

At least 3 interaction areas required to achieve
scientific objectives and facility maintenance
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Flexibility needed for a broad science base

• Nuclear Physics Neutron Scattering
• Synthesis of trans Fe nuclei (multi n0 capture)
• Access to transient nuclear states
• IFE based neutron scattering science
• Ultra-Relativistic Particle acceleration
• New regime for Plasma Physics
• Novel diagnostics for high density matter
• High energy electron, proton, ion sources
• Material properties under extreme conditions
• Isochoric heating to low high temperatures ,LTE
  and non-equilibrium atomic physics, Equation of
  State and Opacity measurements, Warm Dense Matter
  research
• Laboratory Astrophysics
• With high energy compression and heating beams
  HiPER would permit viable laboratory
  astrophysical analogues to be created
• Recreation of stellar cores and coronal plasma,
  He to C burning stars, Supernovae explosion
  dynamics, Interstellar jet dynamics, Planetary
  Nebulae, Gamma ray burster mechanisms, Neutron
  star atmospheres, Giga-Gauss magnetic fields,
  Landau Quantisation of states, Planetary Cores
  metallisation, Large Volume Experiments _at_ GBar
  pressures

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Flexibility needed for a broad science base (3)

• HiPER configured in an extreme power mode could
  enable access to unprecedented electric fields
  and enable tests of some fundamental physical
  theories.
• Such a reconfiguration would only be viable if
  the concepts were demonstrated by intermediate
  facilities (e.g. VULCAN-10PW, ELI)
• Non-linear Quantum Electrodynamics
• Pair production directly from the vacuum
• Production of Pion, Muon beams
• Vacuum Polarisation studies
• Gravitational Quantum Field Theory
• Gravitational Equivalence
• Unruh (Hawking) Radiation?
• High energy accelerator physics
• TeV e - e and g g effects
• GeV / nucleon ion acceleration
• .

Requires focused theoretical effort to design
viable experiments new facility will
reinvigorate this area
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Science drive beam options

• Delivery of Short pulse laser beam in science
  area
• To maximise Il2 requires
• Operation at fundamental
• Focal spot 4 microns or smaller
• Pulse compression 400 fs
• Intensity on target 1024 1025 Wcm-2
• 100KJ on target
• Contrast issues must be considered
• Laser driven ion source
• 1012 to 1013 ions of GeV per nucleon in
  collimated beam
• Relies on radiation pressure drive
• 1015 ions of 10s MeV (double excitation
  processes)
• Direct Fusion in laser E field
• 1011 neutrons, 0.1 ps from 10 x 10 mm source

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Nuclear physics on HiPER

• Nuclear excitation driven directly by intense
  laser radiation
• HiPER beams reconfigured for CPA/OPCPA will
  exceed 150 PW and 1 EW.
• laser intensities exceeding 5 x 1024 W/cm2 and
  possibly up to 5 x 1026 W/cm2.
• corresponding electric fields exceed 1017 V/m
  and 1019 V/m
• induces keV to 100 keV shifts in nuclear levels.
• HiPER will thus, for the first time, enable
  experiments on nuclear excitation directly driven
  by laser radiation, altering nuclear states and
  reaction rates (nuclear level engineering).
• Synchronised high energy particle and radiation
  beams provide a probe of these dressed nuclear
  states, enabling pump-probe experiments to be
  performed on the nucleus.
• Nuclear reactions under high energy and density
  conditions
• Nuclear reaction cross sections can be studied in
  hot plasma, where the presence of ions and clouds
  of electrons produces screening effects.
• HiPER will facilitate experiments to study of the
  effects of screening on thermonuclear reactions,
  important for nuclear burn and for modelling the
  processes at the centre of stellar environments.

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?-ray production

• Ultra-bright source
• ps g-rays

High energy electrons produce hard x-rays when
they are driven into solid targets. From this
radiation, several reactions with increasing
energy threshold can be triggered, such as pair
production, neutron production and pion
production.
Vulcan 1 PW 0.6 Sv/ shot _at_ 1 m gt100 Sv/shot HiPER
Intensity Wcm-2
1. ( ?,n ) Reactions
3. Pion production
2. Photon-induced Fission
Neutron escapes
?
n
isotopes
Proton rich isotope
? (gt4Mev)
? (gt140Mev)
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Nuclear physics on HiPER

• HiPER-driven nuclear radiation sources
• GeV protons and several hundred MeV gammas can be
  used to produce pions.
• At rest pions have a lifetime of 20 ns.
• A laser plasma accelerator (over ps timescale)
  to accelerate pions to increase their energy and
  lifetime.
• In turn high energy pions decay to produce a
  source of muons and neutrinos.
• HiPER can thus be used to drive a high energy
  particle source.
• Relativistic electrons can produce
  electron-positron pairs via the Bethe-Heitler and
  trident processes when interacting with high-Z
  ions.
• The HiPER 70 kJ laser of 10 ps pulse duration
  illuminating a single gold target would in
  principle produce copious numbers of electron
  positron pairs, which when the laser radiation is
  turned off, will expand much quicker than heavier
  ions, creating a pair fireball.

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Neutron generation will be important for source
heating and probing dense matter
Neutrons from PW laser on CD target used to
isochorically heat ultra-dense matter
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Ion generation

• Ion acceleration by Target Normal Sheath
  Acceleration
• Scaling I0.5-0.3
• Hit it harder generally works.
• New laser
• Try something new
• Light pressure

"Please, sir, I want some more." From O Twist,
Illustration by George Cruikshank
photo (c) 1997 Fred Espenak
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Generation of monochromatic proton probes

• Experiment and Theory suggest that high quality
  narrow-band beams can be produced.
• These will be highly suitable for probing dense
  matter.
• HiPER long pulse can generate dense matter.
• High energies may be needed for very dense to
  prevent stopping and scattering.
• RPA scheme with HiPER It product can get to
  1-2GeV C ions.

64 fs, 3x1021Wcm-2 2000 kgm-2, 150nm
Hegelich et al., Nature 2006
Robinson et al. (submitted)
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Is it possible to re-create the atmosphere of a
neutron star ?

• HiPER will generate extraordinary densities and
  temperatures
• HiPER will also simultaneously create gtGiga
  Gauss magnetic fields
• Can it therefore re-create the atmosphere of a
  neutron star ?
• Will the Photon bubble instability be observable
  ?

Courtesy LLNL
Long pulse beams illuminate hohlraum for high
energy density photon field
Long pulse beam(s) accelerates target to mimic
gravity
Kleins photon-bubble instability
High intensity beam creates large magnetic field
toroid
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Nuclear diagnostics for HiPER

• Reaction thresholds few MeV to tens of MeV
  energy range of interest for HiPER
• Advantages
• Insensitive to low energy particles
• Removes potential ambiguity in particle
  identification
• Considerable flexibility in size and shape of
  activation samples
• Can measure
• Energy and angular distributions
• Nuclear yield (neutrons) from fusion reactions
• Electron and ion temperatures
• Potentially implosion / burn history
• Diagnosis of dense core of ignited pellet is
  possible due to highly penetrating nature of n,
  ?, p
• Particularly valuable for determining the overall
  effectiveness of a target design
• Important roles in the non-fusion based science
  programme for HiPER

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Nuclear diagnostics for HiPER

• 2 Innovative nuclear diagnostics
• Design a set of innovative diagnostics to measure
  specific parameters of the fusion and fast
  ignition process
• Examples may include
• fusion reaction history measurements using
  gamma detectors (NIF) (D T
  ? ? 5He)
• charged particle detection to measure yield of
  neutron less reactions (e.g. D
  3He ? p (15 MeV) 4He)
• Techniques for combining imaging and spectral
  measurements of fast neutrons
• HiPER will drive nuclear diagnostic capability
  to higher energy and density systems
• Higher nuclear yields expected observation of
  lower cross section and higher threshold energy
  reactions

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High Power Lasers
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High Average Power Laser development

• Progress is needed prior to the decision to
  construct
• 1 kJ / 10 Hz or 10 kJ / 1 Hz options
  assessed (Chanteloup et al)
• Workshops with research groups industry held
• 80 M beamline estimate (based on recent soft
  quotes at todays prices)
• Beamline design? Many options exist
• ? Market survey and international coordination
  required

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High repetition beamline prototype
kJ scale beamline demonstrator is being assessed
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HiPER laser summary

• Lasers to perform nuclear physics
• HiPER long pulse (DT Ignition products)
• Materials science laser IKJ _at_ Hz, 10PW
• High field science 150 PW
• High rep rate option
• 150 PW or EW?

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Community progress is needed

• 4 key goals need to be met
• Ignition demonstration NIF / LMJ
• Evidence for advanced ignition path EP,
  FIREX,
• Robust, costed facility design for HiPER
• Political and financial commitment
• (and public education )

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How should we plan for the long term?

• Needs to be discussed
• Internationalisation essential
• MFE impact needs care

LIFE Moses, Storm proposal
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Acknowledgements
Over 60 scientists from 24 institutions, 12
countries

• R Bingham, JL Collier, R Clarke, CN Danson, RG
  Evans, C Hernandez-Gomez, MHR Hutchinson, K
  Lancaster, WE Martin, PA Norreys, STFC, UK
• J-C Chanteloup, M Koenig, C LeBlanc, S Jacquemot,
  F Amiranoff, C Labaune, LULI, Ecole
  Polytechnique, France
• S Atzeni, C Bellei, Dipartimento di Energetica,
  Università di Roma, Italy
• C Strangio, ENEA, Frascati, Italy
• J Badziak, J Wolowski, Institute of Plasma
  Physics Laser Microfusion, Warsaw, Poland
• D Batani, Universita degli studi di
  Milano-Bicocca, Italy
• A Giulietti, L Gizzi, University of Pisa, Italy
• S Borneis, V Bagnoud, Gesellschaft für
  Schwerionenforschung mbH, Darmstadt, Germany
• M Roth, University of Darmstadt, Germany
• S Karsch, F Krausz, MPQ Garching, Germany
• J-C Gauthier, Centre Lasers Intenses et
  Applications, Université de Bordeaux, France
• G Mourou, LOA, France
• JJ Honrubia, M Perlado, P Verlade, Universidad
  Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
• K Krushelnick, R Kingham, Imperial College of
  Science, Technology and Medicine, London, UK
• J Davies, G Figueira, N Lopes, T Mendonca, L
  Silva, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon,
  Portugal
• PV Nickles, W Sandner, Max-Born-Institut für
  Nichtlineare Optik und Kurzzeitspektroskopie,
  Berlin, Germany
• K Rohlena, B Rus, PALS, Prague, Czech Republic
• SJ Rose, Clarendon Laboratory, University of
  Oxford, UK
• N Woolsey, University of York, UK

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Conclusions

• We must plan on success with ignition 2012-2015
• A concept for a next-generation European facility
  has been proposed
• The transition from concept to technical and
  political reality is now underway
• Nuclear science possibilities being explored
• HiPER project April 2008
• www.hiper-laser.org)