Radiation heat wave as a basic feature in laser-irradiated foils

Abstract

Radiation hydrodynamics of laser-irradiated plane foils is studied numerically in the frequency-averaged diffusion approximation. Open and closed geometries are considered. It is shown that radiatively driven ablative heat waves play an important role for materials with medium atomic number Z and become dominant for high-Z matter. Scaling relations are given and the role of the opacity is pointed out.