The effect of an initial load twist on Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth and X-ray radiation of wire-array Z-pinches

Initially twisted multiwire Z-pinch loads (Volkov et al., 1998; Golub, 1999) are expected to significantly improve the performance of these X-ray sources. A model based on the self-consistent simulation of the dynamics of a twisted plasma shell and the development of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) perturbations on a plasma surface is proposed to quantitatively study the effect of various physical factors on the generation of X-rays. The model provides us with a tool for the analysis of processes that occur during the implosion of the plasma-shell-wire-core system. We plan for the RT perturbations to break through the plasma shell at the moment when the internal radius of a shell becomes zero, where the greatest possible values of kinetic energy and X-ray radiation power ought to be obtained. The results of numerical simulations for the Sandia National Laboratories' Z-generator are presented and discussed.