Roentgenographic investigations of the dynamics and spatial structure of wire-array Z-pinches

The implosion of wire arrays is studied at the Angara-5-1 facility with the help of an X-ray pinhole camera. It is shown that the drift of the plasma toward the axis occurs in the form of a "plasma rainstorm." The data constituting a part of the experimental database are presented. Based on these data, it is established that the spatial structure of an imploding plasma is highly inhomogeneous, so that it makes no sense to talk about a plasma shell that implodes as a single entity. In this case, plasma inhomogeneities arising due to a "cold start" and prolonged plasma production have a decisive impact on the final parameters of a hyper-terawatt Z-pinch. (C) 2004 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".