Matter in Extreme Conditions Science at LCLS

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory became the first hard X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) in 2009, transforming many areas of science by providing a light source 10 billion times brighter than anything prior, and becoming an open-access user facility. In particular, the ultrabright, ultrashort, tunable, coherent hard X-ray pulses delivered by LCLS make it an ideal source for probing transient high energy density plasma states generated in the lab. The Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) science area at LCLS, encompassing areas such as astrophysics, dynamic compression physics, aerospace science, industrial material processing, compact particle accelerators, and fusion energy, uses as its primary end station the MEC instrument, which pairs high-energy high-power lasers with the XFEL, to drive and probe extreme states of matter. This presentation will give an overview of recent new capabilities and scientific results, including high resolution ultrafast coherent imaging, precision state measurements of dense matter, and dense plasma atomic physics. It will additionally outline growing opportunities in inertial fusion energy (IFE) priority research, for which DOE guidance sets a target of up to 50% of MEC user beamtime to be allocated.