Production of shock heated weakly compressed high temperature plasmas in the high voltage belt pinch

The production of high temperature weakly compressed plasmas is investigated in the 250 kV Belt Pinch experiment. Density, electron and ion temperatures are measured by laser light scattering and neutron yield. At an initial density of 3 x 1013 cm-3 the neutron flux yields an ion temperature of 2 keV in agreement with the free particle model of shock compression. The electron temperature on axis, however, remains relatively low. The density compression ratio is about 3. (author)