Investigation of gamma-ray time shifts caused by capsule areal density variations in inertial confinement fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility and the OMEGA facility

2015 Spring. ; Includes illustrations (some color). ; Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-164). ; This thesis describes work on Cherenkov based gamma detectors used as diag- nostics at Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) facilities. The first part describes the calibration and commissioning of the Gamma Reaction History diagnostic which is a four cell Cherenkov detector array used to characterize the ICF implosion at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) by measuring the gamma rays generated during the fusion event. Two of the key metrics which the GRH measures are Gamma Bang Time (GBT) generated from the D(T,[alpha])n thermonuclear burn and Ablator Peak Time (APT) caused by (n,n')[gamma] reactions in the surrounding capsule ablator. Simu- lations of ignition capsules predict that GBT and APT should be time synchronized. After GRH commissioning, the array was used during first year of NIF operation in the National Ignition Campaign. Contrary to expectations, time shifts between GBT and APT of order 10s of picoseconds were observed. In order to further investigate the possibility of these time shifts in view of testing both instrument and code credibility an ICF shot campaign at the smaller OMEGA facility in Rochester was devised. It was performed during two full shot days in April of 2013 and 2014 and confirmed in principle the viability of the Cherenkov detector approach but raised additional questions regarding the credibility of the simulation codes used to describe ICF experiments. Specifically the measurements show that the understanding of temporal behavior of GBT vs APT may not be properly modeled in the DRACO code used at OMEGA. In view of the OMEGA results which showed no time shifts between GBT and APT, the readout and timing synchronization system of the GRH setup at the NIF was reevaluated in the framework of this thesis. Motivated by the results, which highlighted the use of wrong optical fiber diameters and possible problems with the installed variable optical attenuators, the NIF equipment ...