An experiment to measure the electron-ion thermal equilibration rate in a strongly coupled plasma

J. M. Taccetti, R. P. Shurter, J. P. Roberts, J. F. Benage, B. Graden, B. Haberle, M. S. Murillo, B. Vigil, F. J. Wysocki

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Abstract

We present the most recent results from an experiment aimed at obtaining the temperature equilibration rate between ions and electrons in a strongly coupled plasma by directly measuring the temperature of each component. The plasma is formed by heating a sonic gas jet with a 10 ps laser pulse. The electrons are preferentially heated by the short pulse laser (we are aiming for Te ∼ 100 eV), while the ions, after undergoing very rapid (sub-ps timescale) disorder-induced heating, should only reach a temperature of 10-15 eV. This results in a strongly coupled ion plasma with a Γii ∼ 3-5. We plan to measure the electron and ion temperatures of the resulting plasma independently during and after heating, using collective Thomson scattering for electrons and a high-resolution x-ray spectrometer for the ions (measuring Doppler-broadened absorption lines). Theory indicates that the equilibration rate could be significantly lower than that given by the usual weakly coupled model (Landau-Spitzer) due to coupled collective modes present in the dense plasma.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)4347-4351
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Physics A: General Physics
Volume39
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 28 2006

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