Experimental Validation of Low-Z Ion-Stopping Formalisms Around the Bragg Peak in High-Energy-Density Plasmas

We report on the first accurate validation of low-Z ion-stopping formalisms in the regime ranging from low-velocity ion stopping – through the Bragg peak – to high-velocity ion stopping in well-characterized High-Energy-Density Plasmas. These measurements were executed at electron temperatures and number densities in the range of 1.4 – 2.8 keV and 4x10^23 – 8x10^23 cm^-3, respectively. For these conditions, it is experimentally demonstrated that the Brown-Preston-Singleton formalism provides a better description of the ion stopping than other formalisms around the Bragg peak, except for the ion stopping at vi ~ 0.3vth, where the Brown-Preston-Singleton formalism significantly under predicts the observation. It is postulated that the inclusion of nuclear-elastic scattering and possibly non-thermal velocity distributions, due to the Knudsen reduction of the high-velocity tail, in the modeling of the ion-ion interaction may explain the discrepancy of ~20% at this velocity, which would have an impact on our understanding of the alpha energy deposition and heating of the fuel ions, and thus reduce the ignition threshold in an ignition experiment.