Diagnosing laser-preheated magnetized plasmas relevant to magnetized liner inertial fusion

We present a platform on the OMEGA EP Laser Facility that creates and diagnoses the conditions present during the preheat stage of the MAGnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) concept. Experiments were conducted using 9 kJ of 3 omega (355 nm) light to heat an underdense deuterium gas (electron density: 2.5 x 10(20) cm(-3) = 0.025 of critical density) magnetized with a 10 T axial field. Results show that the deuterium plasma reached a peak electron temperature of 670 +/- 140 eV, diagnosed using streaked spectroscopy of an argon dopant. The results demonstrate that plasmas relevant to the preheat stage of MagLIF can be produced at multiple laser facilities, thereby enabling more rapid progress in understanding magnetized preheat. Results are compared with magneto-radiation-hydrodynamics simulations, and plans for future experiments are described. VC 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.