Mass diffusion and liner material effect in a MagLIF fusion-like plasma

Abstract

In this paper, liner - fuel mass diffusion and the effect of the liner material on mass ablation, energy and magnetic flux losses are studied in a MagLIF fusion-like plasma. The analysis performed in [Garc\'ia-Rubio and Sanz, Phys. Plasmas 24, 072710 (2017)] is extended to liner materials of an arbitrary atomic number. The liner ablates and penetrates into the hot spot, compressing and cooling down the fuel. The magnetic flux in the fuel is lost by Nernst convection through the ablated liner - fuel interface, called ablated border. Increasing the liner atomic number leads to a reduction of both energy and magnetic flux losses in the fuel for a small and moderate magnetization values. Mass diffusion is confined within a thin layer at the ablated border. Concentration gradient and baro-diffusion are the predominant mechanisms leading to liner - fuel mixing. The width of the diffusion layer may be comparable to the turbulent mixing layer resulting from the Rayleigh-Taylor instability at the ablated border. An asymptotic analysis performed for large liner atomic number Z_{2} shows that mass ablation, energy and magnetic flux losses and liner - fuel mass diffusion scale as 1/\sqrt{Z_{2}}.