Acceleration of Taylor plumes on SSX for magneto-inertial fusion

We have added two pinch coils to the glass extension of the SSX plasma wind tunnel device in order to accelerate Taylor plumes to over $100~km/s$. We have characterized velocity ($40~km/s$), density ($0.4~\times 10^{16}~cm^{-3}$), proton temperature ($20~eV$), and magnetic field ($0.2~T$) of relaxed, unaccelerated helical Taylor states $[1]$. Our goal is to accelerate the Taylor states to over $100~km/s$ and compress to small volumes by stagnation. Compression by a factor of ten to increase both density and temperature will put the Taylor state in a suitable parameter regime as a magneto-inertial fusion target. One prototype pinch coil operates at $1~kJ$ ($1.3~\mu F, 40~kV$) and the other operates at $2~kJ$ ($3~\mu F, 40~kV$). Both have quarter-cycle rise times of less than $1~\mu s$. Results from both prototype units will be presented. [1] Gray, et al, PRL {\bf 110}, 085002 (2013).