Investigating radiatively driven, magnetized plasmas with a university scale pulsed-power generator
Abstract
We present first results from a novel experimental platform that is able to access physics relevant to topics including indirect-drive magnetized inertial confinement fusion, laser energy deposition, various topics in atomic physics, and laboratory astrophysics (for example, the penetration of B-fields into high energy density plasmas). This platform uses the x rays from a wire array Z-pinch to irradiate a silicon target, producing an outflow of ablated plasma. The ablated plasma expands into ambient, dynamically significant B-fields (∼5 T), which are supported by the current flowing through the Z-pinch. The outflows have a well-defined (quasi-1D) morphology, enabling the study of fundamental processes typically only available in more complex, integrated schemes. Experiments were fielded on the MAGPIE pulsed-power generator (1.4 MA, 240 ns rise time). On this machine, a wire array Z-pinch produces an x-ray pulse carrying a total energy of ∼15 kJ over ∼30 ns. This equates to an average brightness temperature of around 10 eV on-target.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1063/5.0084550
Entities
People
- Aidan Crilly
- D. R. Russell
- J. P. Chittenden
- Jack Halliday
- L. Suttle
- Roberto Mancini
- S. Merlini
- S. V. Lebedev
- Simon Bland
- Steven Rose
- V. Valenzuela-Villaseca
Organizations
- Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- Imperial College London
- United States Department of Energy
- University of Nevada, Reno
- University of Oxford