Generation and Measurement of Stabilized Plasmas with Sheared Flow

Zap Energy is developing the Sheared-Flow-Stabilized (SFS) Z-pinch confinement concept to produce and sustain high-performance fusion plasmas. A coaxial plasma accelerator is used to generate the plasma flows required for stabilization of the Z-pinch equilibrium. Experiments performed on the Zap Energy FuZE-Q device show a correlation between sheared axial flow profiles and measurement of a stable equilibrium. These results are compared with theoretical understanding of the stability criteria from both kinetic and fluid models. These experiments, and the models that benchmark them, required a more complete diagnosis of the accelerator plasma to better characterize the generation of flow profiles and plasma equilibrium. This has led to a parallel research focus on accelerator measurement and optimization with two new experimental configurations being deployed. First, the Diagnostic Vision in the Accelerator (DiVA) upgrade to FuZE-Q features the addition of a wide variety of diagnostics in the plasma accelerator region. Second, the FuZE-A device has been constructed to systematically test accelerator geometries. An overview of the modeling and scientific results from these two accelerator research platforms will be presented.