title: Pressure and energy balance of stagnating plasmas in z-pinch experiments: implications to current flow at stagnation.
abstract: Detailed spectroscopic diagnostics of the stagnating plasma in two disparate z pinches allow, for the first time, the examination of the plasma properties within a 1D shock wave picture, demonstrating a good agreement with this picture. The conclusion is that for a wide range of imploding-plasma masses and current amplitudes, in experiments optimizing non-Planckian hard radiation yields, contrary to previous descriptions the stagnating plasma pressure is balanced by the implosion pressure, and the radiation energy is provided by the imploding-plasma kinetic energy, rather than by the magnetic-field pressure and magnetic-field-energy dissipation, respectively.
authors.affiliation: Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), Rehovot 76100, Israel.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maron
authors.forename: A
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authors.lastname: Starobinets
authors.forename: V I
authors.initials: VI
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kroupp
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Osin
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Deeney
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Coverdale
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authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: Lepell
authors.forename: E P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jennings
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Cuneo
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Herrmann
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Porter
authors.forename: T A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Mehlhorn
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Apruzese