Inferring Electron Temperature of Shocked Liquid Deuterium Using Inelastic X-Ray Scattering

A laser-ablation--driven shock wave (12 Mbar) was launched in a planar liquid-deuterium target on OMEGA, and the shocked conditions were diagnosed using inelastic x-ray scattering. The electron temperature ($T_{e})$ is inferred from the Doppler-broadened, Compton-downshifted peak of the noncollective x-ray scattering for $T_{e} \quad > \quad T_{Fermi}$. For this purpose, a saran backlighter foil was irradiated with a group of tightly focused beams having an overlapped intensity of $\sim $10$^{16}$ W/cm$^{2}$. The spectrally resolved x-ray scattering of the Cl Ly$_{\alpha }$ emission (\textit{h$\nu $} = 2.96 keV) was recorded at 90\r{ }. The inferred $T_{e}$ = 20$\pm $5 eV is close to the predicted $T_{e}$ = 22 eV. The experimental design and initial results will be reported. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion under Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC52-08NA28302. The work of G. Gregori and K. Falk was supported in part by EPSRC grant No. EP/G007187/1 and by the HiPER collaboration.