Validation of Synthetic Proton Radiography for HED Experiments*

We study self-generated magnetic fields in laser-driven hydrodynamic experiments, using the OMEGA laser, with applications to inertial confinement fusion (ICF), high energy density (HED) plasma physics, and astrophysical phenomena. These experiments aim to replicate the compression of a cold spherical shell driven by a laser beam which produces intense shock waves through the target and potential instabilities at the many interfaces in the capsule, or other extreme boundaries. I will discuss our use of proton radiography and gamma ray spectroscopy as two methods to diagnose the plasma and laser-matter interactions. The experiments are pre- and post-modeled using the radiation hydrodynamic code FLASH which uses Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) on an Eulerian grid. We have developed a new synthetic proton radiography package for the FLASH output and have benchmarked it against trusted Monte Carlo stopping power models. We present these validated synthetic radiographs.