No pain—no gain: The complex art of soft x‐ray laser target design and analysis

We review our methodologies in the design and analysis of soft x‐ray laser experiments. We convolve large scale 2‐D hydro code output with detailed atomic data bases in a kinetics code with 1‐D or 2‐D line transfer. The time and space dependent level population data is then post processed further with a beam transport code, including refraction, to predict actual experimental results. While mysteries do remain, we present many examples that show how this complex modeling procedure is crucial in explaining experimental results.