Feasibility of an experiment to measure stopping powers in solid-density deuterium plasmas at OMEGA

An experimental design to measure the stopping powers of charged-particles through solid-density, fully-ionized deuterium plasmas at temperatures around 10 eV is investigated. Stopping power in this regime is crucial to the understanding of alpha-heating and burn in Internal Confinement Fusion. Recent work by A.B. Zylstra \textit{et al.} on the OMEGA laser facility has demonstrated such measurements of stopping power in partially ionized Be plasmas, by measuring the downshift of D$^{3}$He-protons in an isochorically heated sample. As noted in their work, the effects of partial ionization are not well understood; however such effects are not applicable to hydrogenic fuels, for which the plasmas are expected to be fully ionized. This study will consider the viability of isochorically or shock heating a target to Warm Dense Matter conditions using a platform similar to the planar cryogenic system described by S.P. Regan \textit{et al.}\footnote{S.P. Regan \textit{et al}., Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{ 109}, 265003 (2012).} Plasma properties will be determined by x-ray Thomson scattering while stopping powers will be inferred through measuring downshift of either DD-protons, D$^{3}$He-protons or D$^{\mathrm{3}}$He-alphas, the latter of which is directly applicable to the stopping of DT-alphas in ignition experiments. This work was supported in part by the U.S. DOE, NLUF, LLE, and LLNL.