Staff in the Division have a lead role in assessing the safety and reliability of the enduring nuclear stockpile. We also contribute to analyses of emerging proliferation threats and develop response options. The Division's core technical activities lie in the areas of numerical modeling and simulation and physics model development of complex problems requiring the coupling of multiple physical processes. To improve our models, we design, help field, and analyze laboratory experiments in extreme physical regimes and test our computer codes against an extensive database of results from previous nuclear tests.
Most work is accomplished in multidisciplinary teams.
The staff also provides expert advice to government agencies in support of treaty negotiations and foreign intractions, and operational support in response to nuclear emergencies. One major forcus of our Group involves the design and analysis of pulsed power and laser experiments that offer access to high-energy density physics issues in the absence of nuclear testing. Another major focus is investigating laser-plasma interactions for inertial confinement fusion. Throughout these applications we continue to construct improved plasma models and simulation algorithms to study disparate time and spatial scales and to explore both collisionless and highly collisional plasmas. Additionally, we analyze and assess foreign and proliferant thermonuclear devices, modeling of nuclear weapon radiation output and effects, diagnostic physics, and modeling of astrophysical phenomena.