Experimental characterization of railgun-driven supersonic plasma jets motivated by high energy density physics applications

Abstract

We report experimental results on the parameters, structure, and evolution of high-Mach-number (M) argon plasma jets formed and launched by a pulsed-power-driven railgun. The nominal initial average jet parameters in the data set analyzed are density \approx 2 x 10^(16) cm^(-3), electron temperature \approx 1.4 eV, velocity \approx 30 km/s, M \approx 14, ionization fraction \approx 0.96, diameter \approx 5 cm, and length \approx 20 cm. These values approach the range needed by the Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX), which is designed to use merging plasma jets to form imploding spherical plasma liners that can reach peak pressures of 0.1-1 Mbar at stagnation. As these jets propagate a distance of approximately 40 cm, the average density drops by one order of magnitude, which is at the very low end of the 8-160 times drop predicted by ideal hydrodynamic theory of a constant-M jet.

35 pages, 2 tables, 14 figures, accepted for publication in Physics of Plasmas (12/11/2012)

References in corpus (6)

• Tendency of spherically imploding plasma liners formed by merging plasma jets to evolve toward spherical symmetry
• One-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic scaling studies of imploding spherical plasma liners
• Ideal hydrodynamic scaling relations for a stagnated imploding spherical plasma liner formed by an array of merging plasma jets
• One-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of imploding spherical plasma liners with detailed equation-of-state modeling
• Multi-chord fiber-coupled interferometer with a long coherence length laser
• Multi-chord fiber-coupled interferometry of supersonic plasma jets and comparisons with synthetic data

Cited by in corpus (21)

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• Experiment to Form and Characterize a Section of a Spherically Imploding Plasma Liner
• Laboratory plasma physics experiments using merging supersonic plasma jets
• Ideal hydrodynamic scaling relations for a stagnated imploding spherical plasma liner formed by an array of merging plasma jets
• Experimental characterization of a transition from collisionless to collisional interaction between head-on-merging supersonic plasma jets
• Particle-in-cell simulations of collisionless shock formation via head-on merging of two laboratory supersonic plasma jets
• Possible Energy Gain for a Plasma Liner-Driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion Concept
• Magnetized Plasma Target for Plasma-Jet-Driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion
• Experimental characterization of a section of a spherically imploding plasma liner formed by merging hypersonic plasma jets
• Experimental Measurements of Ion Heating in Collisional Plasma Shocks and Interpenetrating Supersonic Plasma Flows
• Semi-analytic model of plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion
• Particle-in-cell simulations of laser beat-wave magnetization of dense plasmas
• Observation of Rayleigh-Taylor-Instability Evolution in a Plasma with Magnetic and Viscous Effects
• Observation of Shock-Front Separation in Multi-Ion-Species Collisional Plasma Shocks
• Experimental Measurements of Ion Diffusion Coefficients and Heating in a Multi-Ion-Species Plasma Shock
• Physics Criteria for a Subscale Plasma Liner Experiment
• Formation of Transient High-$\beta$ Plasmas in a Magnetized, Weakly Collisional Regime
• On Stability of Targets for Plasma Jet Induced Magnetoinertial Fusion