On characterization of shock propagation and radiative preheating in x-ray driven high-density carbon foils

Abstract

Recently, much effort has been dedicated to the high-density carbon ablator coated fuel capsule in indirect drive inertial confinement fusion experiments due to its higher density compared to other ablators. By using detailed radiation hydrodynamic simulations over a broad range of drive and target parameters, a thorough analysis is performed on shock speed, shock breakout, and maximum preheating temperature in pure and tungsten doped high density carbon foils. The ablators are irradiated by a non-equilibrium x-ray temperature drive consisting of the usual Planckian plus an additionally imposed Gaussian distribution lying in the high frequency M-band region of the incident spectrum. All variables have shown a complex interdependence on strength of the drive, its spectral distribution, and the thickness of the target. Maximum preheating temperature, an important parameter in designing experiments, reduces up to 34% for thicker high-density carbon (HDC) foils, whereas a mere 0.44% doping of tungsten in pure HDC is able to reduce preheating up to 17% for extreme drive conditions. The results are explained on the basis of variation of average albedo/wall loss behavior in foils, an outcome of the interplay between total extinction coefficient and spectral intensity variation with photon energy. For a better understanding and comparison among different types of ablators, multi-parameter scaling relations are proposed for above-mentioned variables, which govern the dynamics of shock propagation and preheating phenomena in HDC based foils.