The NIF will allow us to further our understanding of hydrodynamics of inertial confinement fusion and shock wave phenomena in the galaxy. The NIF will permit the detailed study of phenomena that to the present have been studied exclusively by astronomical observation or by computer theoretical simulation. The NIF will advance our understanding of plasmas and their properties, and will allow a wide range of quantitative experiments with plasmas. On the NIF, we will be able to convert laser energy to a wide variety of x-ray and particle sources needed to address several important physics questions in basic and applied physics. Radiative properties provide the classic example of the noninterfering probe.
Radiative properties provide primary data for numerous studies.