tion later in the decade. As more beams are activated, more sophisticated experiments can be carried out.

NIF experiments on the coupling physics will be vital for the development of quantitative models for the interaction of multiple, crossing laser beams with very long scale length plasmas. In turn, this understanding will enable more efficient use of NIF for applications ranging from inertial fusion to high energy density physics. As a bonus, the concomitant advances in the understanding of nonlinear, kinetic plasma phenomena will benefit other applications of plasma science.

About 10 percent of the NIF laser shots have been allocated for basic science, which is also represented on the facility’s Experimental Planning Advisory Committee. A symposium on frontier science with NIF was held in 1999. Finally, a Stewardship Science Academic Alliances program for university users was launched in FY 2002. This program builds on and significantly extends the existing Inertial Fusion Science in Support of Stockpile Stewardship grant program.

The generation and transport of ultrastrong energy flows in matter are clearly a very promising frontier of high energy density physics. Applications, many of which have been described above, extend beyond fusion energy, to fast ignition, to stockpile stewardship, and to astrophysics. The studies can also enable improved understanding of many basic relativistic plasma phenomena, such as relativistic shocks. Many relevant experiments can be carried out with university-scale, 100-TW-class lasers. Such lasers are available at a number of universities, including the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, and the University of Texas at Austin.

The first petawatt laser used a beamline of the Nova laser at LLNL. Petawatt-class lasers are currently under construction at Osaka University in Japan and at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Plans are under way for petawatt-class lasers at the University of Nevada at Reno using parts from the LLNL laser, and at both Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Rochester.

However, it is important to develop high-energy, high-power lasers beyond a petawatt. That can be accomplished, for example, by configuring the NIF to provide a chirped pulse amplification pulse in one or more beamlines. In this way, one can move into the multipetawatt, even exawatt, class with 10 to 100 kJ of energy. This would allow x-ray radiography of imploding capsules, testing of fast ignition, and exploration of extreme field science. This development should be of high priority, for it clearly is needed for further advance of this important field.

Front Matter (R1-R16)

Executive Summary (1-8)

1. Exordium and Principal Findings and Recommendations (9-33)

2. High Energy Density Astrophysics (34-70)

3. High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (71-119)

4. Laser-Plasma and Beam-Plasma Interactions (120-148)

Glossary (149-160)