The Center for Laboratory Astrophysics (CLA) research uses laboratory tools to study the phenomena that occur in astrophysical events including supernova, star formation, and cataclysmic binary stars, among others. Our research advances the understanding of systems at pressures above a million atmospheres. This is the realm of high-energy-density physics, where we can make Mach-600 shock waves, 50-times-ionized gold, and systems that radiate at a million degrees. We do this in ways that are relevant to questions in astrophysics, and also to the challenges of creating energy on earth by the fusion of nuclei. (This is Inertial Confinement Fusion, or ICF.)
Our experiments employ the most energetic lasers in the world, among other energy sources, to create the large pressures that initiate the dynamics we choose to study. We do this by irradiating targets, a few mm in size, that contain a dozen or more precision components to create, and let us diagnose, these dynamics. We work with diagnostic instruments that employ x-rays, UV or visible light, and protons to probe the structures we create. We also use massively parallel computers to perform simulations of our experiments and of other phenomena.