Verification of fast heating of core plasmas produced by counter-illumination of implosion lasers

Abstract We conducted fast heating of a core plasma produced by counter-illumination of two beam bundles of implosion lasers for two incident directions of the heating laser. For the axial heating configuration, wherein the heating laser was incident along the coaxial direction of the implosion lasers, the size and density of the counter-imploded core plasma were estimated. The incident timing of the heating laser was determined. Although the heating laser was incident during the stagnation of the core plasma, there were no considerable increases in the intensity of X-rays with energies beyond 1 keV and the yield of the thermonuclear fusion neutrons. Effective core heating did not occur due to the interaction of the heating laser with the low-density ablated plasma far from the core. On the other hand, for the transverse heating configuration, wherein the heating laser was incident from the transverse direction of the implosion laser axis, optimization of the incident timing of the heating laser was not achieved. However, two-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulation revealed that a heating laser can directly interact with a core plasma and effective heating is expected. In our scheme, transverse heating configuration appears to be significant.