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arXiv · 2203.11881

Investigating radiatively driven, magnetised plasmas with a university scale pulsed-power generator

Jack W. D. Halliday·Aidan Crilly·Jeremy Chittenden·Roberto C. Mancini·Stefano Merlini·Steven Rose·Danny R. Russell·Lee G. Suttle·Vicente Valenzuela-Villaseca·Simon N. Bland·Sergey V. Lebedev
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Abstract

We present first results from a novel experimental platform which is able to access physics relevant to topics including indirect-drive magnetised ICF; laser energy deposition; various topics in atomic physics; and laboratory astrophysics (for example the penetration of B-fields into HED 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.

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Jack W. D. Halliday, Aidan Crilly, Jeremy Chittenden, Roberto C. Mancini, Stefano Merlini, Steven Rose, Danny R. Russell, Lee G. Suttle, Vicente Valenzuela-Villaseca, Simon N. Bland, Sergey V. Lebedev. 2022-03-22. Investigating radiatively driven, magnetised plasmas with a university scale pulsed-power generator. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0084550

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