Rotating plasma disks in dense Z-pinch experiments Free

We present data from the first z-pinch experiments aiming to simulate aspects of accretion disk physics in the laboratory. Using off axis ablation flows from a wire array z-pinch we demonstrate the formation of a hollow disk structure that rotates at 60 kms⁻¹ for 150 ns. By analysing the Thomson scattered spectrum we make estimates for the ion and electron temperatures as T_i ∼ 60 eV and ZT_e ∼ 150 to 200 eV.