Compression and heating history of an imploding Z-pinch plasma

Summary form only given. We present a complete set of time and radius dependent parameters of the plasma measured during the implosion phase of a gas-puff, 1 /spl mu/s, 300 kA Z-pinch. We determined the ion radial velocity distribution from measurements of Doppler shifts of line emission in the UV-visible spectral range, and the radial distribution of charge-state from axial (head on) observations. From measurements of the Stark line widths, the particle ionization times, and the continuum light intensity we determine the electron density. The electron temperature was obtained from measurements of line intensity ratios of different charge-state ions. The magnetic field and current density distributions were obtained from high-resolution measurements of Zeeman splitting of spectral lines, yielding the plasma conductivity. The ion temperature is shown to be similar to the electron temperature.