Experiments and Simulations of staged Z-Pinch on 1MA ZEBRA facility

Experiments at ZEBRA show uniform compression of a deuterium plasma target compressed by a high-Z gas-puffed liner like Ar or Kr. Pinch stability is improved by seeding the implosion with 0.05-0.15T of B_Z. Implosion dynamics are also studied computationally with MACH2 & HYDRA codes. Simulations show that magnetic field diffuses through the outer shell and piles up at the interface providing narrow profile of high intensity current that preheats the target. This secondary piston launches shock waves in target plasma that heats the target to several hundred eV and this preheated target plasma is adiabatically compressed to densities up to 5x10²⁰ cm^-3 and temperature of 5-10KeV. Simulations show more pronounced pre-heating with Kr than Ar. Axial magnetic field is compressed only in the shocked target and in the liner plasma, providing greater MRT mitigation. For Ar liner on D target experiments we measured neutron yield of 2-5x10⁹ and for Kr liner 5-12x10⁹. Experimental observations like plasma current, visible streak images, gated-XUV pinhole images, and laser shadowgraphs are compared with simulations, and show general agreement. The experimentally measured neutron yield is also in good agreement with simulations.