Picosecond x-ray laser interferometry for probing dense laser-produced plasmas

Summary form only given, as follows. We describe precision interferometric characterization experiments using the picosecond, 14.7 nm x-ray laser source generated on the Compact Multipulse Terawatt (COMET) laser facility together with the Mach-Zehnder type diffraction grating interferometer. A review of the results from dense, mm-scale line focus plasma experiments will be described with detailed comparisons to 1-, 1.5- and 2-D hydrodynamic simulations. Ongoing experiments on smaller spot focus high intensity plasmas will be discussed.