Jet-ambient interaction of a supersonic, radiatively-cooled jet in laboratory experiments

The formation of supersonic, radiatively cooled plasma jets with applications to laboratory astrophysics has been an active area of research on the MAGPIE generator. One of the ways of producing astrophysically-relevant jets in the laboratory is by using the ablation of plasma from a radial foil Z-pinch. In this configuration a ∼1.4 MA, 250 ns current pulse is introduced into an aluminium disk with a thick- ness of 15 µm. The ablated plasma from the foil converges on the axis, producing a steady and collimated jet with a typical axial veloc- ity of ∼100 km/s. The setup allows for the addition of argon above the foil for jet-ambient interaction studies. The interaction is charac- terised by the formation of several shock features, which are presented and discussed from experimental data and numerical simulations.