Related papers: Exploring the Physics of the Plasma Liner Experime…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
We describe an experiment to form and characterize a section of a spherically imploding plasma liner by merging six supersonic plasma jets that are launched by newly designed contoured-gap coaxial plasma guns. This experiment is a prelude…
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…
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…
A one dimensional parameter study of a magneto-inertial fusion (MIF) concept indicates that significant gain may be achievable. This concept uses a dynamically formed plasma shell with inwardly directed momentum to drive a magnetized fuel…
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…
We describe numerical simulations, using the particle-in-cell (PIC) and hybrid-PIC code Lsp [T. P. Hughes et al., Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 2, 110401 (1999)], of the head-on merging of two laboratory supersonic plasma jets. The goals of…
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 present the first three-dimensional fully kinetic electromagnetic relativistic particle-in-cell simulations of the collision of two interpenetrating plasma shells. The highly accurate plasma-kinetic "particle-in-cell" (with the total of…
In this experiment, we measure ion temperature evolution of collisional plasma shocks and colliding supersonic plasma flows across a range of species (Ar, Kr, Xe, N), Mach numbers, and collisionalities. Shocks are formed via the collision…
Investigating the potential benefits of the use of magnetic fields in Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) experiments has given rise to new experimental platforms like the Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) approach at the Z-machine…
Direct studies of intense laser-solid interactions is still of great challenges, because of the many coupled physical mechanisms, such as direct laser heating, ionization dynamics, collision among charged particles, and electrostatic or…
Degradation of first wall materials due to plasma disturbances severely limit both the lifetime and longevity of fusion reactors. Among the various kinds of disturbances, type I edge localized modes (ELMs) in particular present significant…
Three-dimensional (3D) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are used to investigate the interaction of ultrahigh intensity lasers ($> 10^{20}$ W/cm$^{-2}$) with matter at overcritical densities. Intense laser pulses are shown to penetrate up…
The localized deposition of the energy of a laser pulse, as it ablates a solid target, introduces high thermal pressure gradients in the plasma. The thermal expansion of this laser-heated plasma into the ambient medium (ionized residual…
Advances in ultra-intense laser technology are enabling, for the first time, relativistic intensities at mid-infrared (mid-IR) wavelengths. Anticipating further experimental research in this domain, we present high-resolution two…
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…