Publications by authors named "L Suttle"
An X-pinch load driven by an intense current pulse (>100 kA in ∼100 ns) can result in the formation of a small radius, runaway compressional micro-pinch. A micro-pinch is characterized by a hot (>1 keV), current-driven (>100 kA), high-density plasma column (near solid density) with a small neck diameter (1-10 µm), a short axial extent (<1 mm), and a short duration (≲1 ns). With material pressures often well into the multi-Mbar regime, a micro-pinch plasma often radiates an intense, sub-ns burst of sub-keV to multi-keV x rays.
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- The study discusses experiments using pulsed-power to create differentially rotating plasmas, mimicking conditions found in astrophysical disks and jets.
- Angular momentum is introduced through ablation flows from a wire array, rather than boundary forces, leading to a plasma jet that rotates upwards.
- The jet exhibits subsonic rotation with a velocity of around 23 km/s and shows a quasi-Keplerian velocity profile, completing up to two rotations in about 150 nanoseconds.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates perpendicular subcritical shocks created in a laboratory plasma environment using obstacles in a supermagnetosonic outflow from a z pinch setup.
- It confirms the presence of these shocks and notes the formation of secondary shocks downstream, with measurements revealing no significant hydrodynamic jump in shock structure.
- Additionally, the research finds minimal heating across the shock and demonstrates that the classical resistive diffusion length is roughly equal to the width of the shock, indicating low viscous dissipation.
Article Synopsis
- A new technique has been developed to measure velocity and ion sound speed in magnetized, high-energy-density plasmas using a "b-dot" probe in a supersonic plasma flow.
- The method relies on the magnetic Reynolds number to relate the magnetic field to current, allowing for real-time velocity estimation and shock structure analysis via a Mach-Zehnder interferometer.
- Measurements of a specific aluminum plasma generated by an exploding wire array show strong agreement with existing optical and simulation data, confirming the technique's effectiveness.
A diagnostic capable of recording spatially and temporally resolved x-ray self-emission data was developed to characterize experiments on the MAGPIE pulsed-power generator. The diagnostic used two separate imaging systems: a pinhole imaging system with two-dimensional spatial resolution and a slit imaging system with one-dimensional spatial resolution. The two-dimensional imaging system imaged light onto the image plate.
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