Publications

Spectroscopic study of z-pinch stagnation on Z

Rochau, G.A.; Bailey, James E.; Coverdale, Christine A.; Ampleford, David A.; Cuneo, M.E.; Jones, Brent M.; Jennings, Christopher A.; Yu, Edmund Y.; Hansen, Stephanie B.

Fast z-pinches provide intense 1-10 keV photon energy radiation sources. Here, we analyze time-, space-, and spectrally-resolved {approx}2 keV K-shell emissions from Al (5% Mg) wire array implosions on Sandia's Z machine pulsed power driver. The stagnating plasma is modeled as three separate radial zones, and collisional-radiative modeling with radiation transport calculations are used to constrain the temperatures and densities in these regions, accounting for K-shell line opacity and Doppler effects. We discuss plasma conditions and dynamics at the onset of stagnation, and compare inferences from the atomic modeling to three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic simulations.