Two-dimensional effects in imploding plasma liners

The authors have been investigating the two-dimensional behavior of imploding annular plasma liners. Of specific concern here are the dynamics of plasma implosions produced from annular supersonic gas puff injection, driven by multi-megampere current pulses characteristic of the Sandia National Laboratories PROTO-II accelerator. These hollow core z-pinches are being investigated as high energy density radiation sources for photo-ionization pumped x-ray lasers. It is known that these annular pinches are subject to multidimensional disturbances which can disrupt the plasma shell and degrade radiation production. Theoretical estimates and magnetohyrodynamic simulations show that the fastest growing modes of disturbances occur in the r-z plane for z-pinch configurations