Measurements of laser plasma coronal conditions and thermal transport with time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy

This paper presents a detailed characterization of the plasma conditions near the critical density of a laser-produced plasma. Solid spherical plastic targets with small aluminum tracer dots buried below overcoated plastic layers have been uniformly illuminated with green laser light at irradiances of ${10}^{14}$–${10}^{15}$ W/${\mathrm{cm}}^{\mathrm{-}2}$. Time-resolved temperature and density profiles were obtained by using x-ray emission spectroscopy. Detailed comparisons with hydrodynamic simulations show that the thermal transport is well characterized by a flux limit of 0.1.