Modeling of Laser‐generated Radiative Blast Waves

We simulate experiments performed with the Falcon laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to generate strong, cylindrically diverging blast waves of relevance to astrophysics. In particular, we are interested in producing and modeling radiative shocks. We compare numerical simulations with the data and with an analytic approximation to blast-wave propagation with a radiative-loss term included. Our goal is to develop a laboratory setting for studying radiative shocks of relevance to supernova remnants, gamma-ray burst afterglows, and other high-energy astrophysics phenomena. We will show that a good degree of agreement exists between the experimental data and the numerical simulations, demonstrating that it is indeed possible to generate radiative shocks in the laboratory using tabletop femtosecond lasers. In addition, we show how we can determine the energy-loss rate from the blast-wave evolution. This analytic method is independent of the exact mechanism of radiative cooling and is scalable to both the laboratory and astrophysical radiative blast waves.