Laser-produced proton beams as a tool for equation-of-state studies of warm dense matter

The direct determination of equation-of-state data in the warm dense matter regime using a laser-produced proton beam is proposed. The careful choice of the target parameters provides a planar isentropic expansion of the heated matter. A wide region of the phase diagram becomes available by changing the target thickness. Hydrodynamic simulations show that energy and angular spread of the proton beam contribute less than 10% to the error of measured equation-of-state data. The requirements on the target diagnostics arising from the simulation results are discussed.