Pulsed Power Plasmas

  Introduction

  Pulsed Power Drivers

  X-pinches

  Wire arrays

  Pulsed Power ICF

  Laboratory Astrophysics

  WAW 2009

Pulsed Power Plasmas

The HEDP Group studies all aspects of x-pinches, z-pinches and wire arrays driven by compact pulsed power devices. These experiments are of interest both in themselves as highly dynamic plasma objects and high flux, compact x-ray sources, and also in their application to Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) and Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE).

The study of ablation of wires in these various configurations is a subject of particular interest to the research community, in light of its strong effect on the evolution if the plasma structure. The scaling of the ablation process with drive current and materials will determine the confidence in very high current (>60MA) driver designs for ICF. In the HEDP group we design and carry-out experiments to dissect specific areas of the ablation process. These are carried out on an 80kA marx driven pulser, and the 250kA GenASIS linear transformer driver (LTD). The data from these studies enables us to more fully understand the fundamental properties of ablated plasma structures, and determine the physical mechanisms driving their behaviour.

In addition, supersonic jet formation has been studied extensively in its application to astro-physical phenomenon and their interaction with the interstellar medium and other objects. High velocity outflows are formed in several classes of object, particularly in the development of stars (Young Stellar Objects, or YSOs). Direct measurement of the properties of these objects is often difficult to recover, given the vast distances and timescales involved, and the ability to generate scaleable plasma outflows in the laboratory is a highly valuable tool to aid the development of astro-physical models of celestial body development. Both x-pinches and wire arrays have been studied in this relatively new field of High Energy Density Laboratory Astrophysics and have been shown to scale to high Mach number outflows, such as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects.