Anomalous Magnification and Distortion of Knock-On Deuteron Images

Knock-on deuterons, produced when fusion neutrons elastically scatter deuterons in the fuel assembled around the hot spot of an inertial confinement fusion implosion, encode information about the morphology of the assembled fuel. These measurements can diagnose 3-D asymmetries in the imploded fuel at stagnation, which degrade implosion performance. The knock-on deuteron imager is a diagnostic under development at the Omega Laser Facility to image these particles. Initial data include several image distortions, however, that prevent analysis of the images. In this talk, we describe these image distortions, present how they change with experimental parameters, and discuss previous and ongoing attempts to mitigate them. This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under Award Number DE-NA0003856 and Department of Energy under Award Number DE-SC0020431.