Study of High Mach Number Laser Driven Blast Waves

The study of blast waves produced by intense lasers in gases is motivated by the desire to explore astrophysically relevant hydrodynamic phenomena in the laboratory. A systematic scan of laser produced blast waves was performed and the structure of blast waves was examined over a wide range of drive laser energy. Lasers with energies ranging from 10–1000 J illuminated a pin target in either xenon or nitrogen gas, creating a spherical blast wave. A strongly radiating blast wave in xenon gas is observed while blast waves in nitrogen more closely approximate a pure Taylor–Sedov wave. It is also found that at all laser energies, blast waves traveling through xenon gas had their hydrodynamic evolution significantly affected by the passage of illumination laser.

[1]  A M Rubenchik,et al.  Investigation of ultrafast laser-driven radiative blast waves. , 2001, Physical review letters.

[2]  T. Piran,et al.  Fluid Dynamics of Semiradiative Blast Waves , 1998, astro-ph/9803258.

[3]  E. Vishniac.  The dynamic and gravitational instabilities of spherical shocks , 1983 .

[4]  Remington,et al.  Developing a Radiative Shock Experiment Relevant to Astrophysics , 2000, The Astrophysical journal.

[5]  J. Blondin,et al.  Transition to the Radiative Phase in Supernova Remnants , 1998 .

[6]  P. Isenberg.  Adiabatic self-similar blast waves, their radial instabilities, and their application to supernova remnants , 1977 .

[7]  C. Lada,et al.  Sequential formation of subgroups in OB associations , 1977 .

[8]  Jacob Grun,et al.  Dynamical overstability of radiative blast waves: the atomic physics of shock stability. , 2002, Physical review letters.

[9]  Dongsu Ryu,et al.  The growth of linear perturbations of adiabatic shock waves , 1987 .

[10]  Jacob Grun,et al.  Improved models for the dynamical overstability of radiative blast waves , 2003 .

[11]  B. Remington,et al.  The production of strong blast waves through intense laser irradiation of atomic clusters , 2000 .

[12]  D. M. Elmegreen,et al.  Star formation in shock-compressed layers. , 1978 .

[13]  James A. Glaze,et al.  Status Of Large Neodymium Glass Lasers , 1976, Other Conferences.

[14]  B. Draine,et al.  Interstellar Shock Waves , 1980, Science.

[15]  Dongsu Ryu,et al.  The dynamic instability of adiabatic blast waves , 1991 .

[16]  M. Norman,et al.  Nonlinear growth of dynamical overstabilities in blast waves. [effects on supernova remnants] , 1993 .

[17]  Resnick,et al.  Instability of Taylor-Sedov blast waves propagating through a uniform gas. , 1991, Physical review letters.

[18]  J. Erpenbeck,et al.  Stability of Step Shocks , 1962 .