Meetings and Workshops - 2018

February

NIF, Jupiter Laser Facility Users Meet

Users and potential users of NIF and LLNL’s Jupiter Laser Facility (JLF) met at the Bella Rosa event center in Livermore, California, from Feb. 4 to 7 to learn about NIF’s and JLF’s capabilities, recent experiments, and new experimental platforms.

The annual meeting drew 179 researchers, including 23 foreign nationals, from 27 institutions in the United States and seven in other countries. Attendees heard status reports on NIF and JLF from NIF Director Mark Herrmann and JLF Manager Bob Cauble, and NIF User Office Director Kevin Fournier discussed “what‘s new” for NIF users.

The Department of Energy’s perspective was presented by Bryan Sims, representing the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Program Office, and Kramer Akli of the DOE Office of Science. Also on the agenda were briefings on current Discovery Science, inertial confinement fusion, and high energy density science experiments on NIF and JLF. Plans for newly awarded NIF Discovery Science campaigns also were discussed.

NNSA provided support for the attendance of three undergraduate students, 39 graduate students, and 18 postdocs, who presented posters on their research.

Attendees at the NIF/JLF User Group meeting pose for a group photo. Credit: Jason Laurea

“The Jupiter Laser Facility continues to be a unique high energy density science facility that serves as both a training center for the next generation of HED scientists and a place where high-impact discoveries can be made,” commented Luke Fletcher, chair of the JLF User Group. “Such discoveries additionally support the science mission and goals of the National Ignition Facility. With the support and financial investments from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as well as the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, the future for continuing that legacy is promising.”

Farhat Beg of the University of California, San Diego (left), chair of the NIF User Group, and Luke Fletcher of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2nd from left), chair of the JLF User Group, with graduate student poster award winners Archie Bott of the University of Oxford and Graeme Sutcliffe of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.