Heating and compression of spherical shell targets by high-intensity laser radiation

The SFERA program is used to carry out a numerical analysis, in the wave approximation, of the problem of absorption and scattering of linearly polarized laser radiation self-consistent with the hydrodynamics of a spherical target plasma. It is found that the main absorption mechanisms are bremsstrahlung and resonance absorption and the highest-intensity nonlinear process is stimulated Brillouin scattering. The results of the calculations show good agreement with the experimental diagram of scattering of radiation by a spherical target. The SFERA numerical code and the OBOLOCHKA analytic model are developed and these satisfactorily describe experiments made in various laboratories on the rate of collapse, compression ratio, and neutron yield.