A Table-top Pulsed Power Device for Counter-streaming Plasma Experiments

抄録

A compact pulsed power device was proposed and constructed for plasma interaction experiments relevant to astrophysical phenomena using a configuration of counter-streaming high-speed plasma flows. A controllable, high-speed argon plasma flow with a drift velocity of ∼ 20km/s, an ion density of 10¹³cm^-3, an electron temperature of ∼ 1eV, and a pulse length of a few microseconds was obtained using tapered z-pinch discharge. Plasma interaction experiments were carried out at high-acoustic-Mach number regime (M_i∼ 10) in which ion-ion collision was negligible. An enhancement of line emission and a decrease of probe current were observed in the interaction region of counter-streaming plasmas. These results indicate that the ion flow decelerated even without momentum transfer due to ion-ion collisions.