Published: 2001
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The world has stood witness to the development of a number of highly sophisticated and flexible, high power laser facilities (energies up to 50 kJ and powers up to 50 TW), driven largely by the world-wide effort in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). The charter of diagnosing implosions with detailed, quantitative measurements has driven the ICF laser facilities to be exceedingly versatile and well equipped with diagnostics. Interestingly, there is considerable overlap in the physics of ICF and astrophysics. Both typically involve compressible radiative hydrodynamics, radiation transport, complex opacities, and equations of state of dense matter. Surprisingly, however, there has been little communication between these two communities to date. With the recent declassification of ICF in the USA, and the approval to commence with construction of the next generation''superlasers'', the 2 MJ National Ignition Facility in the US, and its equivalent, the LMJ laser in France, the situation is ripe for change. . Given the physics similarities that exist between ICF and astrophysics, one strongly suspects that there should exist regions of overlap where supporting research on the large lasers could be beneficial to the astrophysics community. As a catalyst for discussions to this end, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory sponsored this workshop. Approximately 100 scientists attended from around the world, representing eight countries: the USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and Israel. A total of 30 technical papers were presented. The two day workshop was divided into four sessions, focusing on nonlinear hydrodynamics, radiative hydrodynamics, radiation transport, and atomic physics-opacities. Copies of the presentations are contained in these proceedings.
