Cylindrical compressions with embedded B-field to characterize strongly magnetized hot dense plasmas.

The use of external magnetic fields in ICF has been identified as a promising way to assist ignition. For this relatively new area of sustained research, the magnetic field transport during compression and related magnetized plasma dynamics must be studied. We propose a platform for the OMEGA-60 laser facility to study MHD effects in cylindrical implosions at regimes of large magnetic pressure and magnetization. Cylindrical targets are filled with Ar-doped D₂ gas and are symmetrically imploded using a 36-beam, 15 kJ, 1.5 ns laser drive. To investigate the effects of magnetization, implosions are characterized using X-ray framed imaging and Ar K-shell line-emission spectroscopy. 2-D simulations using the MHD code GORGON predict that a seed B-field of 30 T is compressed to ~30 kT. As a result, the characteristic conditions of the compressed core and the emitted Ar spectrum are modified. We present results of implosions with a seed B-field induced in laser-driven coils and MIFEDS. According to proton probing, the seed B-field generated with laser-driven coils was <10 T, likely due to the large inductance of the coils. Carrying out such magnetized implosion experiments will advance modeling of B-field compression and diffusion, and benchmark atomic kinetics and line shape calculations in magnetized plasmas relevant to complex ICF-related experiments with embedded B-fields.