参加報告：High Energy Density Science (HEDS) Summer School（大阪大学レーザー研・James Edward Hernandez）
As a part of JSPS Core-to-Core program, I have participated in the 2023 HEDS Summer School from July 16 to 28th at the University of San Diego, California (UCSD). During summer school, I listened to and participated in discussions regarding diverse topics in High energy density science. These topics involve inertial confinement fusion, laboratory astrophysics, whose lectures provided a comprehensive background of the recent themes in these fields. One of my favorite talks was the one from Professor R. Betti on inertial confinement fusion (ICF), as it provided me with fundamental understandings on the mechanisms for performing experiments using ultrahigh energy lasers. Alongside the lectures, there were student poster presentations from which I have learned significantly.
In addition, a workshop was also conducted for all participants, where I chose to be in the radiation hydrodynamics group. In this workshop, tasks were assigned for which I have developed a basic setup of an ICF target with a drive laser using FLASH code from the University of Rochester. Also, we also experienced plotting plasma parameters using HELIOS from PRISMSpect. I was able to present the results of my assignment and learned about others’ tasks.
As part of the summer school, a UCSD campus lab tour was also conducted, and we were exposed to some of the basic research performed by the university including Z-pinches and linear RF plasmas.
Aside from listening to lectures and doing workshop tasks, I also networked with various students from different universities. The student pool was diverse –some came from theoretical plasma physics, and some were from undergraduate. And we have mingled with each other as equals. We had short trips together and we discussed our careers while uplifting each other.
As a result, summer school was fun due to the new physics and the people. Learning new physics also provided me with new perspectives in continuing my own research, as well as opening avenues for collaboration.
