Toward imploding spherical plasma liner formation via an array of merging supersonic plasma jets

摘要

From 2009–2012, a multi-institutional collaboration led by LANL pursued an integrated theory/modeling and experimental effort aimed at fielding targetless, spherical-plasma-liner formation experiments via the merging of thirty argon plasma jets, to reach 0.1–1 Mbar of peak stagnation pressure with a total (thirty-jet) initial kinetic energy of ∼375 kJ. Specific goals included: (i) developing scaling laws for peak achievable pressures as a function of initial plasma jet parameters; (ii) achieving the plasma gun technology to deliver argon plasma jets with the requisite parameters (n≈10