The effect of adding a center jet to Argon gas puff implosions at the Z facility

Argon gas puff implosions have been found to be an extremely efficient source of K-shell x-rays (3-4 keV) on the Z pulsed power facility at Sandia National Labs. producing over 300 kJ of K-shell emission in double-shell experiments. Experiments at Double Eagle [1] and Saturn [2] have previously found that adding a central jet of mass to their double-shell gas puff configurations increased the yield substantially.This presentation will describe recent experiments on Z that have investigated the effect of adding a central jet to doubleshell gas puffs on yield and plasma conditions. The central jet was added to two gas puff configurations: a 1:1.6 inner/outer shell mass ratio puff and a faster-imploding 1:1 mass ratio puff. Experimental results and comparisons to simulation will be described.