Design of a flux compression experiment on Atlas

A possible plasma target for Magnetized Target Fusion is a stable diffuse z pinch like that of the MAGO experiments at VNIIEF. In this case plasma would reside in a toroidal cavity, eg., between two cylindrical walls with end planes. Compressing magnetic flux inside a chamber of that geometry is the purpose of the Atlas experiment. The outer wall or ``liner'' will be an aluminum cylinder $\sim $ 2-mm thick that is imploded by Atlas current flowing from the end walls (``glide planes'') to the outside of the liner. Flux for compression will be introduced by momentarily diverting a small amount of Atlas current using a shunt resistor, which avoids the cost and complexity of an auxiliary power supply. Modeling of experimental parameters will be described based on results from three codes: a) a semi-analytic ode incompressible liner model, b) the Los Alamos RAVEN 1D Lagrangian code, and c) the Los Alamos 1D or 2D MHRDR Eulerian code.