Investigations of ultrafast phenomena in high-energy density physics using X-ray FEL radiation

The advent of highly intense and ultrashort pulses of short-wavelength radiation in the vacuum-ultraviolet to X-ray regime provides for the first time the possibility to study plasmas at the time scale of equilibration or even electron thermalization. The emerging radiation sources are free-electron lasers (FEL) based on high-energy electron accelerators. FELs provide a peak brilliance nine orders of magnitude higher than the best performing X-rays sources today. The FEL radiation parameters will enable the creation of high-energy density states of matter and the development of new diagnostics tools to investigate dense plasmas. As the first of the new sources the VUV-FEL at DESY, Hamburg becomes operational for high-energy density physics experiments during 2005.