Investigation of magnetic field effects on the mitigation of the magnetohydrodynamic Rayleigh-Taylor instability in fast Z-pinch implosions

Summary form only given. Numerical simulations have been carried out to investigate the role that magnetic field diffusion and ohmic heating have on the magnetohydrodynamic Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) development in fast Z-pinch implosions. Previous work has indicated these terms can strongly influence the evolution of RT growth, leading to a reduction in RT amplitude, and an improvement in pinch performance. Indeed, Roderick et al. (1986) have suggested that "magnetic smoothing" is an important mechanism in linear RT growth. To examine this in more detail, simulations are presented for a 1.4 mg, 25.0 mm diameter tungsten wire array imploded in the Saturn long pulse mode. The 130 ns implosion time of this calculation should enhance any mitigating effects that may be attributed to nonideal MHD. Calculations were performed using the 2D MHD code MACH2.