Study of Ablatively Imploded Spherical Shells

Abstract

The implosion of spherical-shell targets driven ablatively by six 1.05-\ensuremath{\mu}m laser beams at an irradiance of \ensuremath{\sim} ${10}^{13}$ W ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ has been studied by streak time-resolved x-ray shadowgraphy. Measurements of acceleration determined the ablation pressure. Departures from one-dimensional simulations showed increasingly degraded implosions as the shell aspect ratio $\frac{\mathcal{r}}{\ensuremath{\Delta}\mathcal{r}}$ was increased from 10 to 110 for shells with surface perturbations of $\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.05\ensuremath{\Delta}\mathcal{r}$.