Numerical simulations of enhanced ion current losses in the inner magnetically insulated transmission line of the Z accelerator

Two-dimensional electromagnetic (EM) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of a radial magnetically-insulated-transmission-line are presented and compared to the model of E. M. Waisman, M. P. Desjarlais, and M. E. Cuneo [Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 22, 030402 (2019) in the ``high-enhancement'' (WDC-HE) limit. The simulations use quasi-equilibrium current and voltage values based on the Sandia National Laboratories $Z$ accelerator, with prescribed injection of an electron sheath that gives electron density profiles qualitatively similar to those used in the WDC-HE model. We find that the WDC-HE model accurately predicts the quasiequilibrium ion current losses in the EM PIC simulations for a wide range of current and voltage values. For the case of two ion species where one is magnetically insulated by the ambient magnetic field and the other is not, the charge of the lighter insulated species in the anode-cathode gap can modify the electric field profile, reducing the ion current density enhancement for the heavier ion species. On the other hand, for multiple ion species, when the lighter ions are not magnetically insulated and are a significant fraction of the anode plasma, they dominate the current loss, producing loss currents which are a significant fraction of the lighter ion WDC values. The observation of this effect in the present work is new to the field and may significantly impact the analysis of ion current losses in the $Z$ machine inner MITL and convolute.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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