Radiation environments produced by plasma z-pinch stagnation on central targets

A goal of pulsed-power technology is the development of an intense, megajoule level source of soft x rays for use in high-energy density physics experiments. Experimental facilities, theoretical concepts, computational tools, and diagnostics that have been developed since 1980 place pulsed power at the threshold of performing experiments of great interest to the applied physics community. In this paper the open-quotes Flying Radiation Caseclose quotes approach will be presented and its predicted performance on Sandia National Laboratory close-quote s Z-Machine [M. K. Matzen, Phys. Plasmas 4, 1519 (1997)] will be described. The effects of instability growth in the plasma during the implosion, its reassembly on a central cushion, and the plasma interactions with shaped electrodes are considered. copyright 1998 American Institute of Physics