February 22, 2017

SLAC HED will lead new NIF Discovery Science awards

By HED

The NIF user office announced 10 new discovery science awards for NIF shot time beginning in the spring of 2018. Two of these experiments, selected from among 26 proposals submitted last summer, are led or co-led by SLAC scientists investigating cosmic ray acceleration and brown dwarfs physics.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Experimental Highlights

Particle in Cell simulation of counter propagating plasmas on NIF — Collision-less shocks are believed to be the dominant source of cosmic rays. 3D simulations for NIF conditions indicate the possibility of studying collision-less shocks and associated particle acceleration in the laboratory. PI: Frederico Fiuza.

Artist's rendition of a brown dwarf. Credit: Robert Hurt, Caltech. PI. Ronald Redmer. — Artist's rendition of a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are larger than planets and smaller and cooler than stars; NIF experiments can, for the first time, produce and measure the physical properties of these extreme states of matter. Credit: Robert Hurt, Caltech. PI. Ronald Redmer.