Atomic kinetics of laboratory photoionized plasmas relevant to astrophysics. Final report
- Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States)
The major goal of this project was to study the atomic and radiation physics of photoionized plasmas driven by a broadband x-ray flux and its impact on plasma x-ray heating and ionization, emissivity and opacity, and radiation-hydrodynamics. This problem is relevant to the physics of accretion disks surrounding black holes, x-ray binaries, and active galactic nuclei in astrophysics. In addition, it is also important for understanding non-equilibrium laboratory plasmas driven by a distribution of photons. To this end, and motivated by previous and ongoing gas-cell experiments performed by the PI at the Z facility of Sandia National Laboratories, we developed a new experimental platform at the 1MA Zebra pulsed power accelerator of the University of Nevada, Reno based on using a gas jet produced by a supersonic nozzle. The gas jet is turned into a photoionized plasma driven by the x- ray flux from a wire-array z-pinch. Establishing this new experimental platform at Zebra was a major goal of this project. In addition, we have also dedicated effort to continue complementary experiments at the Z facility using the gas-cell photoionized plasma set up with support from the Fundamental Science Program at Z as well as to perform data processing and analysis, and theory and modeling simulations, including electron kinetics and radiation-hydrodynamics. Since we seek to test and establish what physics models are needed to describe photoionized plasma guided by experimental observation, these complementary experimental efforts were central to achieving the goals of this project.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0014451
- OSTI ID:
- 1607354
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-UNR-SC0014451; TRN: US2103968
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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