THE GOAL OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO USE COMPLIMENTARY EXPERIMENTS, THEORY AND SIMULATIONS TO DEVELOP AND VALIDATE A MODEL FOR STRONG COUPLING EFFECTS IN RADIATION HYDRODYNAMICS. IN PARTICULAR, IT HAS THREE OBJECTIVES: 1. CREATE AND CHARACTERIZE A STRONGLY COUPLED, RADIATIVE PLASMA. TWO EXPERIMENTAL PLATFORMS WILL BE DEVELOPED: ONE WITH A SPHERICAL IMPLOSION GEOMETRY TO BE IMPLEMENTED AT THE OMEGA LASER FACILITY, AND A PLANAR GEOMETRY TO BE IMPLEMENTED AT OMEGA-EP OR ANOTHER LASERNETUS FACILITY. 2. DEVELOP A THEORETICAL MODEL FOR BREMSSTRAHLUNG EMISSION AND ABSORPTION IN STRONGLY COUPLED RADIATIVE PLASMA. THE MEAN FORCE KINETIC THEORY CONCEPT, WHICH HAS RECENTLY BEEN DEVELOPED TO DESCRIBE COLLISIONAL TRANSPORT IN STRONGLY COUPLED PLASMAS, WILL BE ADAPTED TO DESCRIBE BREMSSTRAHLUNG EMISSION AND ABSORPTION. THE THEORY WILL BE BENCHMARKED USING CLASSICAL MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATIONS. 3. TEST THE THEORETICAL MODEL BY COMPARING MEASURED AND PREDICTED EMISSION SPECTRA. THE THEORY WILL BE APPLIED TO CALCULATE EMISSION SPECTRA, AND WILL BE COMBINED WITH A LINE BROADENING MODEL, TO PREDICT THE EMISSION SPECTRA FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL MATERIALS AND CONDITIONS. A COMPARISON OF THE THIS WITH THE MEASURED SPECTRA WILL PROVIDE TESTS OF THE MODEL. SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THIS RESEARCH PROGRAM WILL RESULT IN A VALIDATED MODEL FOR RADIATION TRANSPORT IN STRONGLY COUPLED HED PLASMAS. SUCH A MODEL WOULD ADVANCE SCIENCE IN MANY LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS AND ASTROPHYSICAL OBJECTS THAT RELY ON ACCURATE DESCRIPTIONS OF RADIATION TRANSPORT TO MODEL PLASMA PROPERTIES AND EVOLUTION.