Tomographic reconstruction of high energy density plasmas with picosecond temporal resolution

Three-dimensional reconstruction of the electron density in a plasma can be obtained by passing multiple beams at different field angles simultaneously through a plasma and performing a tomographic reconstruction of the measured field-dependent phase profiles. In this letter, a relatively simple experimental setup is proposed and simulations are carried out to verify the technique. The plasma distribution is modeled as a discreet number of phase screens and a Zernike polynomial representation of the phase screens is used to reconstruct the plasma profile. Using a subpicosecond laser, the complete three-dimensional electron density of the plasma can be obtained with a time resolution limited only by the transit time of the probe through the plasma