Plasma outflows from wire-based z-pinch experiments driven at currents of hundreds of kiloamperes.

Abstract

Preliminary results on the latest experiments regarding plasma outflows from different wire-based z-pinch configurations performed in the Llampudken generator (∼350kA in ∼350ns) are presented. These outflows are produced from three different experiments: cylindrical, conical and nested conical arrays. Our experiments show that it is indeed possible to produce plasma outflows from moderate size pulsed power drivers with currents of some hundreds of kiloamperes. Each one of the configurations studied here can produce a dense plasma outflow characterized by its own set of dimensionless parameters; such as Reynolds number, magnetic Reynolds number, amongst others. A dense magnetized, magneto-hydrodynamically unstable plasma outflow is produced using a modified cylindrical wire array, whereas strongly collimated jets are produced from the conical configurations. Moreover, it is possible to mimic the episodic emission of plasma outflow in a collimated jet by producing temporally separated implosions from the nested conical configuration. Finally, the characteristic and dynamics of each outflow are presented and discussed.