Shock Breakout Driven by Colliding Plasmas in the Double-Cone Ignition Scheme

The Double-cone ignition (DCI) scheme optimizes laser energy coupling efficiency by decoupling the compression and heating processes.During heating, picosecond (ps) lasers are focused inside a heating cone to generate fast electrons that subsequently transport through the cone tip into high-density pre-compressed plasma and deposit their energy.The quality of fast electron generation is critically sensitive to the inner surface condition of the heating cone tip.However, during the implosion, continuously rising temperature and density of the colliding plasmas drive a shock wave that impacts the tip of the heating cone.A premature breakout of the tip would severely degrade