Azimuthal clumping instabilities in a Z-pinch wire array

Journal Article · Sun May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2005 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1886828· OSTI ID:20722092

Strickler, Trevor; Lau, Y Y; Gilgenbach, R M; Cuneo, M E; Mehlhorn, T A ^[1]

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1. Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2104 (United States)

A simple model is constructed to evaluate the temporal evolution of azimuthal clumping instabilities in a cylindrical array of current-carrying wires. An analytic scaling law is derived, which shows that randomly seeded perturbations evolve at the rate of the fastest unstable mode, almost from the start. This instability is entirely analogous to the Jeans instability in a self-gravitating disk, where the mutual attraction of gravity is replaced by the mutual attraction among the current-carrying wires.

• OSTI ID: 20722092
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 12, Issue 5; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.1886828; (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
EXPLODING WIRES
LINEAR Z PINCH DEVICES
LONGITUDINAL PINCH
PLASMA INSTABILITY
SCALING LAWS