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SUMMARY:Measurements of Hypervelocity Plasma Jets for Plasma Liner-Driven 
 Magneto-Inertial Fusion
DTSTART:20120913T143000
DTEND:20120913T153000
DTSTAMP:20260504T011540Z
UID:5e5c47d4d1349d3adb0393324dee2c508815881fc023145de05c2515
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. M. Gilmore\, University of New Mexico\, Albuquerque\, Ne
 w Mexico\, USA\nMagneto-inertial fusion (MIF) refers to several different 
 schemes to produce fusion energy with densities and confinement times inte
 rmediate between magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusi
 on (ICF).  MIF seeks to utilize magnetic fields to reduce transport such 
 that implosion times required for ICF can be reduced from ~ nanoseconds to
  ~ microseconds\, thereby reducing enormously the complexity and cost of t
 he implosion driver (laser or pulsed power system).  Several different MI
 F schemes are now being pursued using both mm-scale and cm-scale targets\,
  including magnetized (via external coils) laser direct drive targets at U
 . Rochester\, USA\, MAGLIF (MAGnetic Liner Inertial Fusion) at Sandia Nati
 onal Laboratories\, USA\, and magnetized target fusion (MTF) at the Air Fo
 rce Research Lab and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)\, USA.\nIn the 
 MTF (magnetized target fusion) scheme\, a cm-scale compact toroid (CT) wit
 h density n ~ 10^22 m^-3\, temperature T ~ 100 eV is formed and translated
  in ~ 10 μs via pulsed magnetic coils into a ~ 30 cm long\, 10 cm diamete
 r solid metal can (metal “liner”).  The metal liner is then imploded 
 in a z-pinch configuration using a TW-scale pulsed power driver.  PdV wor
 k from the imploding linear heats the compressed CT plasma to thermonuclea
 r conditions.  Though reactor studies indicate that implosion repetition 
 rates only on the order of 1 shot/10 seconds would be required in an MTF r
 eactor (as opposed to ~ 10 Hz for purely laser-driven ICF)\, continuously 
 delivering such “coke can” size liners and clearing the activated debr
 is at such rates in a reactor presents a daunting engineering challenge. 
  The “plasma liner” concept therefore seeks to replace the metal can w
 ith an imploding (gas) plasma liner.\nThe plasma liner experiment (PLX) at
  LANL is investigating the feasibility of forming imploding plasma liners 
 with stagnation pressures ~ 100 kPa using a spherical array of high-Z hype
 rvelocity plasma jets.  The plasma jets are generated by plasma rail guns
  manufactured by HyperV Technology Corp.\, which have demonstrated the acc
 eleration of up to 8 mg of Argon to 50 – 150 km/s\, yielding plasma jet 
 parameters n ~ 10^22 m^-3\, T ~ 1 eV\, Mach numbers\, M ~ 20 – 50.  The
  first phase of PLX – now underway - is to study the propagation and exp
 ansion of a single jet\, and the merging of two jets.\nSingle and merging 
 jet diagnostics include visible imaging\, visible spectroscopy\, and a nov
 el 8 chord reconfigurable visible interferometer.  The reconfigurable int
 erferometer front end is achieved by fiber-coupling signals to/from the va
 cuum chamber\, and a newly-available long coherence length\, diode-pumped 
 solid state laser operating at 561 nm allows pathlength mismatches of many
  meters to be used without signal degradation\, thereby greatly simplifyin
 g the system’s optical layout.  It has been found that in PLX plasmas i
 nterferometer phase shifts are sensitive to neutral and ion density\, as w
 ell as electron density.\nIn this talk an overview of MIF and the plasma l
 iner experiment will first be given.  The interferometer instrument will 
 then be discussed\, and measurements\, data analysis\, and physics interpr
 etations of single jet and two jet merging studies will be shown.
LOCATION:PPB 019
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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