Plasma Jet Modeling for PLX

The implicit simulation code ePLAS has been applied to plasma jets generated with mini-rail guns for plasma production and compression aimed at use with PLX. The rails are typically planar, 2.5 cm apart and arranged to transport an initial 1 cm or wider vertical plasma fill some 10 cm into a void. The driving magnetic field is 3.2 T. The plasma singly ionized argon at 10$^{17}$ cm$^{-3}$. We use ePLAS in both its traditional implicit/hybrid form [1] where it is restricted by an electron Courant time step, and in a new super-hybrid form that extracts the main electron moments from the \textit{E{\&}B}-field solutions. This provides numerical stability at \textit{ion} Courant limits, for at least a 10 times larger time step, thus probing microsecond jet dynamics with computational economy. We examine possible field penetration at the cathode and anode gun electrodes. Cathode erosion and EMHD $B-$Field penetration are possible at lower jet densities [2]. We examine jet transport beyond the gun, modeling possible ionization with either analytic or tabular EOSs. We study the merger of jets with ions represented as either fluids or particles.\\[4pt] [1] R. J. Mason and C. Cranfill, IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. \textbf{PS-14}, 45 (1986)\\[0pt] [2] R. Mason, et al., Phys. Fluids \textbf{B, 5}, 1115 (1993).