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Double Gas Puff Z-pinch Experiments on the CESZAR LTD

POSTER

Abstract

Gas puff Z-pinches1 are intense sources of X-rays and/or neutrons and are of interest to study the physics of high energy density matter. Experiments were conducted on the CESZAR linear transformer driver2 (LTD) with 500 kA, 160 ns current pulses, using a double nozzle producing an annular shell and a central jet. The effect of changing gas species was studied using metrics like instability amplitude and energy coupling. We show that a low-impedance LTD can implode a variety of gas puff loads with energy coupling efficiency of order ~10% from the primary storage. The addition of the central jet improves pinch stability, reproducibility, and energy coupling compared to a hollow shell gas puff. Magneto-hydrodynamic simulations are used to compare plasma kinetic energy and instability amplitude, and to infer values of internal energy. Trends of stability versus gas atomic number are discussed and related to the X-ray emission characteristics.

 

[1] J. L. Giuliani and R. J. Commisso, IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 43, 2385 (2015).

[2] F. Conti, J. C. Valenzuela, V. Fadeev, N. Aybar, D. B. Reisman, A. Williams, G. Collins IV, J. Narkis, M. P. Ross, and F. N. Beg, Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 23, 090401 (2020).

Presenters

  • Fabio Conti

    University of California, San Diego, University of California San Diego

Authors

  • Fabio Conti

    University of California, San Diego, University of California San Diego

  • Apsara M Williams

    University of California, San Diego

  • Jeff Narkis

    University of California, San Diego

  • Nicholas Aybar

    University of California, San Diego

  • Vladimir Fadeev

    University of California, San Diego

  • Farhat N Beg

    University of California San Diego, University of California, San Diego, Center for Energy Research,University of California, San Diego, USA.