Initial Experiments Using the OMEGA EP Laser System

The OMEGA EP Laser System was completed in April 2008 as a significant enhancement of the OMEGA Laser System. It consists of four NIF-like beamlines, two of which can be operated as high-energy petawatt laser beams. The initial experimental plan includes developing bright backlighter sources (line and bremsstrahlung), isochoric heating, hot-electron conversion-efficiency measurements (to compare with results from other systems), long-pulse LPI at NIF-relevant scale lengths, and fast-ignition integrated experiments using cone-in-shell targets. Backlighter experiments are designed to optimize the fluence for cryogenic implosion core radiography. This talk will describe the current status of the OMEGA~EP Laser System and some initial target-physics experiments. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion under Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC52-08NA28302.