Assessment of Proton Deflectometry for Exploding Wire Experiments

University Of California-San Diego, La Jolla CA

Investigators

Abstract

This award is made in response to a proposal submitted to and reviewed under the NSF/DoE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering joint solicitation NSF 08-589. The award provides funds to support undergraduate participation in the overall research effort, which is being funded separately by the DoE under contract UCSD (Science report #09ER55038). This research investigates strongly driven MHD systems and the influence of magnetic field topology on plasma evolution in pulsed-power driven plasmas. This will be examined using an advanced diagnostic method, namely proton probing, and involves both experimental and computational work. The experimental campaign to assess and optimize proton deflectometry will be done for various exploding wire configurations on the 1MA ZEBRA generator at the Nevada Terawatt Facility using the 50TW Leopard laser, with data interpretation by use of the 3D resistive MHD GORGON and 3D hybrid-PIC LSP codes. The experimental program involves intense field-matter interaction in the generation of the proton probe, as well as the generation of plasma subjected to MG scale magnetic fields. The computational aspect will apply two well documented plasma simulation codes, one 3D resistive MHD and one 3D Particle-in-Cell (PIC), in combination for the first time to provide accurate interpretation of the experimental results. This research includes 2 graduate students, one at UCSD and one at NTF, who will be involved with both the experimental physics work and the MHD and PIC modeling of the system. Data resulting from the research program will be broadly disseminated by publication in scientific journals, and presentation at international and national conferences and workshops. Graduate and undergraduate students will present results. The NSF support of undergraduate participation adds a broader educational impact through the early-year training of students by introducing them to scientific research as a possible career path.