A laser experiment for studying radiative shocks in astrophysics

X. Fleury (1) , S. Bouquet (1) , C. Stehlé (2) , M. Koenig (3) , D. Batani (4) , A. Benuzzi-Mounaix (3) , J. -P. Chièze (5) , N. Grandjouan (3) , J. Grenier (6) , T. Hall (7) , E. Henry (4) , J.-P. Lafon (2) , S. Leygnac (2) , Victor Malka (3) , B. Marchetti (8) , H. Merdji (5) , C. Michaut (2) , F. Thais (5)

1 DPTA - Département de Physique Théorique et Appliquée
2 DASGAL - Departement d'Astrophysique Stellaire et Galactique
3 LULI - Laboratoire pour l'utilisation des lasers intenses
4 Dipartimento di Fisica "Giuseppe Occhialini" = Department of Physics "Giuseppe Occhialini" [Milano-Bicocca]
5 DAP - Département d'Astrophysique (ex SAP)
6 CESTA - Centre d'études scientifiques et techniques d'Aquitaine
7 University of Essex
8 Département de Conception et de Réalisation des Expériences

In this article, we present a laboratory astrophysics experiment on radiative shocks and its interpretation using simple modelization. The experiment is performed with a 100-J laser (pulse duration of about 0.5 ns) which irradiates a 1-mm^3 xenon gas-filled cell. Descriptions of both the experiment and the associated diagnostics are given. The apparition of a radiation precursor in the unshocked material is evidenced from interferometry diagrams. A model including self-similar solutions and numerical ones is derived and fairly good agreements are obtained between the theoretical and the experimental results.

Keywords: Interferometry; Laser astrophysics; Radiative precursor; Self similar solutions

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

X. Fleury, S. Bouquet, C. Stehlé, M. Koenig, D. Batani, et al.. A laser experiment for studying radiative shocks in astrophysics. Laser and Particle Beams, 2002, 20 (2), pp.263-268. ⟨10.1017/S0263034602202165⟩. ⟨hal-00518950⟩