Inverse Liner Z-Pinch: An Experimental Pulsed Power Platform for Studying Radiative Shocks

Abstract

We present a new experimental platform for studying radiative shocks using an "inverse liner z-pinch" configuration. This platform was tested on the MAGPIE pulsed power facility (1 MA with a rise time of ∼240 ns) at Imperial College London, U.K. Current is discharged through a thin-walled metal tube (a liner) embedded in a low-density gas-fill and returned through a central post. The resulting magnetic pressure inside the liner launched a cylindrically symmetric, expanding radiative shock into the gas-fill at ∼10 km/s. This experimental platform provides good diagnostic access, allowing multiframe optical self-emission imaging, laser interferometry, and optical emission spectrography to be fielded. Results from experiments with an Argon gas-fill initially at 0.04 mg/cm3 are presented, demonstrating the successful production of cylindrically symmetric, expanding shocks that exhibit radiative effects such as the formation of a radiative precursor.