The Performance of Magnetic Anvil Cells From 1 to 100 MA

The properties of warm dense matter are keys to predict planetary formation, where the core of the planet is in a regime where strong quantum effects and Coulomb coupling limit our ability to evaluate even the most basic material properties. Usually produced by high power lasers or heavy ion beams, predictions from numerical simulations (PERSEUS) have shown that pulsed power drivers can be another effective to study bulk material properties in this regime
¹
. The key ingredient added by using a pulsed power driver is the confinement of WDM by intense magnetic fields. A mega-ampere pulsed power generator can confine WDM up to 10 Mbars. Under such conditions, bulk material properties can be produced and diagnosed at the mesoscale. While a simple z-pinch configuration yields surface instabilities early on in the discharge, the addition of a damper, surrounding the cylindrical sample, dramatically improves the symmetry and homogeneity of the implosion. Numerical simulations show how this experimental setup scales with current, from HADES
²
to Z 800
³
.