MP1208 - Developing the Physics and the Scientific community for Inertial Confinement Fusion at the time of NIF ignition

The Action aims at directly contributing to develop a scientific community in Europe working in Inertial Confinement Fusion and High Energy Density Physics. This will be complementary and synergic to several initiatives going on in Europe at the moment, in particular the construction of the lasers Megajoule and Petal in France (LMJ/PETAL facility), the upgrade of high-energy laser facilities already working, the HiPER and ELI projects. At the same time, we think that the physics related to the development of high-energy laser facilities is very interesting and fascinating in itself, opening new perspectives and new fields of research. The objectives of the Action address Networking on one side and the Study of relevant physics on the other. In particular, LMJ/PETAL will be open the European academic community for civilian research in 2015. This will be a unique system in the world (comparable only to NIF in US) and we want to contribute to the elaboration of the scientific program for such facility over the next 10 years. No other European research program is at the moment directly covering such topics and all mentioned programs are related to “facility development” rather than “community building”. Therefore we will fill an “empty slot” in a way which is synergic to running programs.