Very strongly coupled plasma produced by laser-generated shock waves

Summary form only given, as follows. Strongly coupled plasmas are of interest to studies of inertial confinement fusion, hypervelocity impact phenomena, and Jovian planets and stellar interiors. One way to produce such plasmas in the laboratory is via shock compression and heating of a solid. This would require strong shocks with amplitudes in excess of 1 MBar, which is readily accessible by laser-driven ablation. In a recent laser-generated shock wave experiment, silicon plasmas with ion-ion coupling constants in excess of 40 have been obtained. Such plasmas have also allowed the first experimental study of electron-ion equilibrium in a strongly coupled plasma.