Related papers: Experiment to Form and Characterize a Section of a…
We report experimental results on merging of hypersonic plasma jets, which is the fundamental building block for forming spherically imploding plasma liners as a potential standoff compression driver for mangeto-inertial fusion. Jets are…
Plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF) is an alternative approach to controlled nuclear fusion which aims to utilize a line-replaceable dense plasma liner as a repetitive spherical compression driver. In this experiment, first…
Spherically imploding plasma liners, formed by merging hypersonic plasma jets, are a proposed standoff driver to compress magnetized target plasmas to fusion conditions [S. C. Hsu et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 40, 1287 (2012)]. In this…
A semi-analytic model for plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion is presented. Compressions of a magnetized plasma target by a spherically imploding plasma liner are calculated in one dimension (1D), accounting for compressible…
Simulation studies of a section of a spherically imploding plasma liner, formed by the merger of six hypersonic plasma jets, have been performed at conditions relevant to the Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX) [S. C. Hsu et al., IEEE Trans.…
Three dimensional hydrodynamic simulations have been performed using smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) in order to study the effects of discrete jets on the processes of plasma liner formation, implosion on vacuum, and expansion. The…
We identify the desired characteristics and parameters of a beta>1 magnetized plasma, possibly with highly tangled, open field lines, that could be a suitable target to be compressed to fusion conditions by a spherically imploding plasma…
The Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is a platform that seeks to achieve fusion via the Plasma-Jet-Driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion (PJMIF) concept. The experiment utilizes a constellation of plasma guns…
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…
We describe a laboratory plasma physics experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory that uses two merging supersonic plasma jets formed and launched by pulsed-power-driven rail guns. The jets can be formed using any atomic species or…
This work presents scaling relations for the peak thermal pressure and stagnation time (over which peak pressure is sustained) for an imploding spherical plasma liner formed by an array of merging plasma jets. Results were derived from…
We report spatially resolved measurements of the oblique merging of two supersonic laboratory plasma jets. The jets are formed and launched by pulsed-power-driven railguns using injected argon, and have electron density $\sim 10^{14}$…
We present results from experiments on the head-on merging of two supersonic plasma jets in an initially collisionless regime for the counter-streaming ions. The plasma jets are of either an argon/impurity or hydrogen/impurity mixture and…
In this paper we present a numerical study of plasma jets produced by intense laser matter interactions. Through this study we hope to better understand astrophysical jets and their recent experimental simulations in the laboratory. We paid…
This work studies the interaction between colliding plasma jets to understand regimes in which jet merging results in shock formation versus regimes in which the shock formation is mitigated due to the collisionless interpenetration of the…
This work describes a laboratory plasma experiment and initial results which should give insight into the magnetic dynamics of accretion discs and jets. A high-speed multiple-frame CCD camera reveals images of the formation and helical…
The compression and stability of plasma targets for the plasma jet-induced magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF) have been investigated via large scale simulations using the FronTier code capable of explicit tracking of material interfaces. In…
Measurements of the various plasma configurations produced by a planar magnetized coaxial gun provide insight into the magnetic topology evolution resulting from magnetic helicity injection. Important features of the experiments are a very…
Idealized merging argon plasma jets are simulated in 2D using both gas dynamic and MHD models. Results indicate that peak pressures of several hundred kilobar can be achieved for high Mach number jets. Including a simple optically thin…
A multi-chord fiber-coupled interferometer [Merritt et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 033506 (2012)] is being used to make time-resolved density measurements of supersonic argon plasma jets on the Plasma Liner Experiment [Hsu et al., Bull.…