Schlieren method diagnostics of plasma compression in front of coaxial gun

The schlieren method employing a movable knife edge placed in the focal plane of a laser beam was used for the diagnostics of plasma produced by a coaxial plasma gun. When compared with the interferometric method reported earlier, spatial resolution was improved by more than one order of magnitude. In the determination of electron density near the gun orifice, spherical symmetry of the current sheath inhomogeneities and cylindrical symmetry of the compression maximum were assumed. Radial variation of electron density could be reconstructed from the photometric measurements of the transversal variation of schlieren light intensity. Due to small plasma dimensions, electron density was determined directly from the knife edge shift necessary for shadowing the corresponding part of the picture. (J.U.)