Using pulsed power to help understand radiation-hydrodynamic behavior

Summary form only given. Pulsed power, such as the Sandia Z-machine, is contributing our understanding of where codes model reality. Fine-zoned Eulerian (and ALE) calculations, for a wide variety of geometries, show elaborate structure such as jets and instabilities, which are not calculated by Lagrangian codes. More and faster computers allow these fine-zoned (1.0 micron or less on a side) calculations to be done. The Z-machine, along with modern diagnostics, which obtain time-dependent images for more than one photon energy response, are well suited to helping us understand, in at least one case, how much of this structure is real. The geometry considered here is a CH tamped hole in a Au hohlraum for which Eulerian calculations show a jet of Au forming at a corner of the Au and moving through the CH tamping. Subsequently, large amounts of Au move into the hole. Lagrangian calculations show the Au to have only minimal motion. Here pulsed power enables us to determine the better computer model.