Controlling the Seeding and In-Flight Evolution of the Magneto-Rayleigh-Taylor Instability

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This project will test new ideas for effective compression and heating of plasmas via pulses of electric current channeled through the plasma. Such pulses can create powerful electromagnetic fields which then squeeze and heat the plasma. Instabilities can limit how much a cylinder of plasma can be squeezed by causing the plasma to break up into clumps. This research project will test new ideas for reducing plasma instabilities. The knowledge gained in this project could enable more powerful x-ray generation, higher-pressure material properties experiments, more efficient nuclear fusion generation, and a better understanding of astrophysical processes. The project will benefit society by advancing basic scientific knowledge, enabling future energy sources, and improving the national defense capabilities. This project will also help to train a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students in plasma science and engineering while building stronger partnerships between academia, industry, and national laboratories.This project will investigate the way in which cylindrical plasmas become unstable and break apart when they are strongly compressed by a magnetic field. Two new theoretical concepts will be tested experimentally. The first study will investigate plasma instability when the plasma source is a cylindrical metal foil that has been vaporized and ionized by an intense pulse of electrical current. The goal of this study is to determine how the instability is affected by the material properties of the metal foil. Experiments will be conducted with various foil materials, and the results will be compared to predictions from a recently developed theory. The second study will investigate the effect of rotating the direction of the magnetic field lines as the plasma is compressed. A recently published theory predicts that the cumulative instability growth should be reduced by one to two orders of magnitude. Experiments will be conducted to test this theory.