Determination of the average ionization and thermodynamic regimes of xenon plasmas with an application to the characterization of blast waves launched in xenon clusters

Abstract

Radiative shock waves play a pivotal role in the transport energy into the stellar medium. This fact has led to many efforts to scale the astrophysical phenomena to accessible laboratory conditions and their study has been highlighted as an area requiring further experimental investigations. Low density material with high atomic mass is suitable to achieve radiative regime, and, therefore, low density xenon gas is commonly used for the medium in which the radiative shock propagates. In this work the average ionization and the thermodynamic regimes of xenon plasmas are determined as functions of the matter density and temperature in a wide range of plasma conditions. The results obtained will be applied to characterize blast waves launched in xenon clusters.