Interaction of a Supersonic Plasma Jet With an Argon Ambient Using Laser Interferometry

Author

Suzuki-Vidal, Francisco ; Lebedev, Sergey V. ; Swadling, George ; De Grouchy, Philip ; Bocchi, Matteo ; Burdiak, Guy ; Bland, Simon N. ; Hall, Gareth N. ; Harvey-Thompson, Adam J. ; Khoory, Essa ; Pickworth, Louisa ; Skidmore, Jonathan ; Chittenden, Jerem

Author_Institution

Blackett Lab., Imperial Coll. London, London, UK

Volume

39

Issue

11

fYear

2011

Firstpage

2830

Lastpage

2831

Abstract

Highly supersonic radiatively cooled plasma jets are produced by introducing a 1-MA 250-ns current pulse from the MAGPIE generator into a radial foil. The setup allows for the introduction of a neutral gas above the foil, in order to study the jet-ambient interaction. The dynamics are characterized by the formation of several shock features, which are imaged using laser interferometry. This diagnostic also allows to measure the electron density of the plasma, and examples of such results are presented here.

Keywords

argon; plasma density; plasma diagnostics; plasma jets; plasma shock waves; plasma transport processes; supersonic flow; Ar; MAGPIE generator; current 1 MA; current pulse analysis; electron density; highly supersonic radiatively cooled plasma jets; jet-ambient interaction process; laser interferometry; neutral gas analysis; plasma diagnostics; shock waves; time 250 ns; Electrodes; Generators; Laboratories; Laser beams; Laser theory; Optical interferometry; Plasmas; Astrophysics; optical interferometry; plasma diagnostics; shock waves;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2011.2146283

Filename

5773507