Inverse Z-pinch in fundamental investigations

This paper is devoted to examination of the possibility of using deuterium inverse Z-pinch for investigation of the dd reaction at ultralow deuterium collision energies. The experiment was carried out at the Institute of High-Current Electronics (Tomsk) using the high current accelerator (the current pulse amplitude is 850 kA, the high-voltage pulse duration is ∼ 80 ns). The characteristic data of the deuterium liner accelerated by the inverse Z-pinch process up to (2.8–7.2)×107 cm/s were measured for the first time. The character and values of γ and neutron radiation occurred during the liner acceleration process were examined. The application of fast scintillator neutron detectors with definite size and a deuterium target located at distances more than 140 mm from the liner axis was demonstrated to allow reliable time separation of “useful” events from background events.