The ultimate laser

[absolom7691]

Very curious on this one. My friend and I were kicking around the idea for planetary defense from invading whatnots... Could the sun be made to lase??? Imagine that kind of power! A HR on one side and OC on the other.

[flecom]

Very curious on this one. My friend and I were kicking around the idea for planetary defense from invading whatnots... Could the sun be made to lase??? Imagine that kind of power! A HR on one side and OC on the other.

mmm, fusion laser...

[300EVIL]

You could lase a telephone pole if you hit it with enough energy. The biggest issue with creating the "ultimate laser" is input energy, lasing mediums are a dime a dozen. Chemical lasers are at the top of the list because it's a pump and medium all in one. Creating a resonator cavity to be able to handle that many photons is the second issue. Considering the sun is by far the largest energy source in our solar system. Utilizing it's energy would make a very "Ultimate" laser. The question would be how and why. Deathstar?

[absolom7691]

Why is simple; given the Science-Fantasy aspect of actually building something like that, it would be perfect planetary defense against asteroids or invading bad guys. Of course, moving a HR and OC in perfect synchronization around the sun for aiming would be difficult. The distance between the two mirrors would be in the millions of miles so, alignment would be difficult. lol, imagine walking those optics!

[buffo]

On a more practical level, the closest we've ever come to a death-star laser is the research done on fission-pumped x-ray lasers as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Saddly, they had the unfortunate side effect of being destroyed by the atomic blast that supplied the pumping energy just a few fractions of a second after lasing.

As for lasing the sun, you're looking at mostly hydrogen with a little bit of helium in there, which limits your choices. However, it turns out that Hydrogen will lase UV, while helium is easily excited and is also very effective at transferring energy through collisions to other gasses.

So theoretically it might be possible. But in practice? You're talking about engineering on a scale so far removed from what we're capable of that it's akin to fantasy. The mirrors would need to be enormous, and they would also need to withstand tremendous power densities. When we're capable of building something like a Bussard ramjet or a Dyson sphere, we might be ready to try this as well.

Adam

[Xytrell]

Also, the photons generated in the core take thousands of years to reach us because of all the bouncing around they do. It might take a few generations to see if your alignment made a difference.

Does the sun have a population inversion as it stands (floats?) now?

[Occularis]

How would you mount the galvos?

[absolom7691]

Accutally, since the sun is spherical, you could just move the HR and OC around to any direction!

[absolom7691]

@ Xytrell

I imagine the gravitational forces would play havoc with the photons as well, probably scrambling the coherence.