Heating and acceleration of plasma during explosion of a wire in vacuum in a strong longitudinal magnetic field

Additional estimates {Yu. É. Adam’yan, A. N. Berezkin, and G. A. Shneerson, Abstracts of the VI All-Union Conference on the Physics of High-Temperature Plasmas [in Russian], Leningrad (1983), Vol. 2, pp. 387–389; Yu. É. Adam’yan, V. M. Vasilevski\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $$\overset{\lower0.5em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\smile}$}}{l} $$ \end{document}, Krivosheev et al., Pis’ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 21(23), 43 (1995) [Tech. Phys. Lett. 21(12), 968 (1995)]; S. N. Kolgatin and G. A. Shneerson, Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 67 (1), 57 (1997) [Tech. Phys. 42, 39 (1997)]; Yu. É. Adam’yan, V. M. Vasilevski\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document} $$\overset{\lower0.5em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\smile}$}}{l} $$ \end{document}, Krivosheev et al., Abstracts of the VI International Conference on the Generation of Megagauss Magnetic Fields and Related Experiments [in Russian], Sarov (1996)]} are presented to illustrate the possibility of and to explain the phenomenon of the acceleration and heating of a conducting medium as it expands perpendicular to a specified external field. The bulk of this paper is devoted to a description of experiments where this effect was observed during expansion of a cloud of gas with a relatively low density formed near a wire as it undergoes an electrical explosion in vacuum. The experimental data, obtained using additional diagnostics including streak camera photography and diamagnetic measurements, show that in magnetic fields with an induction of about 50 T, heating and acceleration of the outer layers of the plasma from the electrical explosion of a wire in vacuum to velocities of about 20 km/s are observed. A numerical simulation of the acceleration process is used for interpreting the results.