Generation of episodic magnetically driven plasma jets in a radial foil Z-pinch

Abstract

We present experimental results of the formation of magnetically driven plasma jets, showing for the first time a way of producing episodic jet/ouflows in the laboratory. The jets are produced using a 6.5 μm thick aluminum disk (a radial foil), which is subjected to the 1 MA, 250 ns current pulse from the MAGPIE generator [I. H. Mitchell et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 67, 1533 (1996)]. The early time motion of the foil is characterized by the bulk motion of the mass due to the magnetic pressure, together with the formation of a surface plasma following the direction of the J×B force. A low density plasma fills the region above the foil preceding the formation of subsequent magnetically driven jets on the axis of expanding magnetic bubbles. The outflows emerge in timescales of ∼30–40 ns and their episodic nature is the result of current reconnection in the foil, aided by the formation of current-driven instabilities in the jet and the distribution of mass available from the foil. The additional inductance due to the new current path inside the cavities was measured using an inductive probe, allowing to estimate the energy balance associated with the episodes. The measured temperature of the compressed jet resulted in Te∼300 eV and a magnetic Reynolds number of ReM∼200–1000, allowing the experiments to be in the regime relevant for scaled representations of astrophysical outflows.