Preliminary investigations into utilizing standard/hybrid x-pinch line radiation as a probe for x-ray Thomson scattering experiments

The x-pinch has proven to be a valuable continuum and line radiation source in high energy density (HED) plasma diagnostics such as x-ray absorption spectroscopy¹ and monochromatic backlight imaging². Landen et al.³ have shown laser-produced plasma x-ray sources can be successfully used to probe the high densities (ne >; 10²¹ cm^-3) encountered in many HED plasmas of interest by way of x-ray Thomson scattering, which can yield information on plasma temperature, density and charge state in the noncollective and collective scattering regimes. We attempt to determine if line radiation from certain materials in a standard/hybrid X-pinch configuration can meet the stringent probe radiation source requirements for x-ray Thomson scattering experiments⁴, i.e. photon count (minimum 10¹² photons into the scattering volume), bandwidth (ΔE/E ≈ 0.01 for noncollective scattering, ΔE/E ≈ 0.002 for collective scattering) and sufficient separation from other characteristic line structures. Previous experiments have shown that the K-line radiation output from an X-pinch can reach upwards of 30J with almost 1J going into a single line in certain materials. A lower limit estimate of 10mJ into an intense and narrow K-shell line would yield roughly 10¹⁴ photons into 4π sr, which would translate to about 10¹² photons into a scattering volume with a reasonable solid angle of 0.1 sr. Experimentally and computationally determined photon counts and time-integrated spectra obtained for the different materials studied are presented.