Numerical study of jets produced by conical wire arrays on the Magpie pulsed power generator

TL;DR

This study models jets from conical wire arrays on the MAGPIE pulsed power generator using 3D MHD simulations, reproduces experiments, and explores how array configurations influence jet stability and properties.

Contribution

It is the first to use detailed 3D MHD simulations to analyze the stability and behavior of conical wire array jets on MAGPIE, linking laboratory results with astrophysical phenomena.

Findings

Minimum resolution of 100 is needed to capture jet instability.

Fewer wires lead to more unstable, magnetically influenced jets.

Adding a conical shield results in shorter, less dense jets.

Abstract

The aim of this work is to model the jets produced by conical wire arrays on the MAGPIE generator, and to design and test new setups to strengthen the link between laboratory and astrophysical jets. We performed the modelling with direct three-dimensional magneto-hydro-dynamic numerical simulations using the code GORGON. We applied our code to the typical MAGPIE setup and we successfully reproduced the experiments. We found that a minimum resolution of approximately 100 is required to retrieve the unstable character of the jet. We investigated the effect of changing the number of wires and found that arrays with less wires produce more unstable jets, and that this effect has magnetic origin. Finally, we studied the behaviour of the conical array together with a conical shield on top of it to reduce the presence of unwanted low density plasma flows. The resulting jet is shorter and less dense.