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Congressman Swalwell visits Lab to witness experiment at National Ignition Facility

Congressman Eric Swalwell visited the Laboratory Monday to witness an experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

After an initial overview by NIF Director Mark Herrmann, Swalwell was greeted by Lab Director Bill Goldstein, Livermore Field Office Manager Nicole Nelson-Jean and NIF & Photon Science Principal Associate Director Jeff Wisoff.

The group moved to the facility’s Control Room, where NIF Operations Manager Bruno Van Wonterghem provided a detailed description of the experimental process, driven by more than 5 million lines of code, as the shot countdown began. After the experiment’s conclusion, Swalwell briefly met with scientists Joe Ralph, John Moody and Ryan Rygg to discuss the experiment.

Monday morning’s experiment is the latest in a study of implosions using rugby-shaped hohlraums (rather than traditional cylindrically shaped hohlraums) to achieve inertial confinement fusion at NIF. These experiments are a collaboration between scientists at CEA (Commissariat à l'énergie atomique) France and LLNL. The aim of this experiment was to demonstrate control of the implosion shape using crossed-beam energy transfer. The proper distribution of beam powers and energies is needed to achieve a round implosion, which is essential to ignition. Data from this experiment provides the shape-scaling information necessary to obtain round implosions in a rugby hohlraum.

"Thank you for what you are doing for science," Swalwell told the team.

Swalwell was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2012. He represents California’s 15th congressional district, an area that covers much of the East Bay and includes the Laboratory.