Stabilized radiative Z-pinch loads with tailored density profiles

Abstract

Mitigation of the Rayleigh–Taylor (RT) instability of Z-pinch loads imploded from large initial radii through tailoring initial load density profiles in radial and axial directions is studied numerically. These methods could be helpful for a variety of applications of high-power Z-pinches, from producing large amounts of K-shell radiation to imploding inertial confinement fusion pellets. Radial density tailoring is demonstrated to delay the onset of the RT instability development at the expense of reducing the energy available for conversion into radiation. Axial density tailoring can fully stabilize acceleration of a fraction of the initial load mass. For a better tradeoff between stability and radiative performance of the loads, the density profiles could be tailored in two dimensions, combining the advantages of both methods. Post-processing of the radiation-magnetohydrodynamic simulation results demonstrates that an appreciable K-shell argon radiation power could be generated with a stabilized argon load imploded by a 5 MA current from a ∼10 cm initial radius in about 0.5 μs.