Speaker
Description
High-power, short-pulse lasers are opening a complementary route to classical accelerator techniques for studying nuclear reactions at energies relevant to astrophysics. By driving interactions with molecular-cluster jets, lasers can generate transient, high-density plasmas where fusion proceeds in partially ionized matter and under strongly time-dependent conditions. This offers a unique opportunity to investigate how plasma effects—such as plasma screening, collective fields, and non-thermal ion distributions—may modify effective reaction rates compared to “cold-target” measurements, and to benchmark the assumptions used in stellar and primordial nucleosynthesis models.
In this invited talk, I will review the methodology and recent progress of laser-driven nuclear astrophysics experiments, with emphasis on cluster-based platforms. I will discuss how ion energy spectra and fusion-product yields can be measured simultaneously and combined to infer an effective reactivity in the plasma. Particular attention will be given to diagnostic strategies for low-energy ions and fusion products, including Thomson parabola spectrometers, ion time-of-flight detectors (CVD diamond), fast neutron scintillators, and optical plasma diagnostics. Results and lessons learned from recent campaigns on cryogenic deuterium and deuterated-methane targets will be presented, highlighting key experimental systematics such as energy-loss effects in the target and the impact
of repetition-rate constraints.
Finally, I will outline the roadmap toward next-generation measurements at facilities such as ELI-NP. There, controlled scans of target thermodynamics and focusing geometry (beam waist and Rayleigh length), together with high-contrast sub-picosecond pulses and advanced cryogenic cluster sources, will enable systematic optimization of laser–target coupling and fusion observables. The perspective is to establish a reproducible experimental framework that bridges nuclear astrophysics and high-energy-density plasma physics, providing benchmark data for plasma-modified reaction rates and charged-particle observables relevant to nucleosynthesis.