X-ray tomography of warm dense matter

Studies of warm dense matter (WDM) is an emerging and challenging field that is at the border of condensed matter physics and plasma physics. WDM is created in laboratory in the interactions of intense laser (or particle) beams with solid-density matter. With a laser pulse focused to diameters of a few micrometers, gradients of the generated-plasma parameters and ultra-intense induced electric and magnetic fields are expected to be of a similar scale and, thus, measurements with high spatial resolution are desired. Because of the high density, only short-wavelength radiation may escape the interior of the target, thus, the inner-shell x-ray emission, e.g., K_ is an important instrument to yield valuable information on such plasmas. Furthermore, intensity and shape of inner-shell lines depend on properties of both the thermal (or "bulk") and suprathermal ("fast" or "hot") electron distributions.