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. A relatively simple experimental setup is proposed and simulations are carried out to verify the technique. The plasma distribution is modeled as a discrete number of phase screens, and a Zernike polynomial representation of the phase screens is used to reconstruct the plasma profile.