Control of Jet Velocity and Internal Plasma Conditions of Conical Wire Array Plasma Jets

Plasma jets produced by conical wire arrays are widely used in high energy density physics and laboratory astrophysics, including in experiments on jet collimation, magnetic launching, and plasma shocks [1–3]. While previous studies have demonstrated their relevance and scalability to astrophysical scenarios [2,3], further experimental characterization of their internal structure remains necessary due to diagnostic challenges

In this talk, I will present new experimental results from the Llampudken pulsed-power generator. Plasma jets are produced using aluminium conical wire arrays with varying opening angles, and diagnosed using a comprehensive diagnostic suite, combining Moiré-Schlieren deflectometry, optical emission spectroscopy, and optical Thomson scattering. The combination of these diagnostics provide spatially resolved measurements of electron density, ion/electron temperatures, and flow velocity within these jets.

Our results show that density and temperature profiles remain largely unaffected by the conical geometry, whereas the jet propagation velocity increases with the opening angle. We observe clear thermal decoupling between electrons and ions, shaped by the competition between collisional energy exchange and radiative cooling. Additionally, a filtering aperture introduced in the setup reveals that previous experiments may have overestimated jet density by including contributions from parasitic plasma flows.

These findings establish new benchmarks for the internal characterization of conical wire array jets, support their scalability to astrophysical conditions, and motivate their use in future experiments involving plasma-plasma interactions and shock formation.

This talk summarizes the results presented in [4], currently under review.

[1] L. Izquierdo et al., Results in Physics 37, 105476 (2022)

[2] S. Lebedev et al., IEEE Vol. 2, pp. 317–320. (2002)

[3] F. Veloso et al., Journal of physics Vol. 720 (2016)

[4] L. Izquierdo et al., arXiv:2507.05652 (2025)

This work has been partially funded by Fondecyt/Regular 1231286, 1220533, 3230401 and 1211131 projects. L. Izquierdo acknowledges doctoral funding from ANID-Subdirección de Capital Humano/Doctorado Nacional/2023-21230431.