High energy density physics at the Atomic Weapons Establishment

The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is tasked with supporting Continuous At Sea Deterrence (CASD) by certifying the performance and safety of the national deterrent in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) era. This means that recourse to further underground testing is not possible, and certification must be achieved by supplementing the historical data with the use of computer calculation. In order to facilitate this, AWE operates some of the largest supercomputers in the UK. To validate the computer codes, and indeed the designers who are using them, it is necessary to carry out further experiments in the right regimes. An excellent way to meet many of the requirements for material property data and to provide confidence in the validity of the algorithms is through experiments carried out on high power laser facilities.