Study of large-diameter gas puff implosions

Z-pinches with long time implosions is the subject of this paper. The exper iments with neon, argon, krypton and xenon implosions have been conducted o n a GIT-12 (Bugaev S P et al 1997 Izv. Vyssh. Uchebn. Zaved., Fiz 40 38) ge nerator at a current level of 2.2-2.5 MA. The goal was to study an unstable gas puff of large diameter. Attention was focused on the dynamics of the i mplosion of such a gas puff, namely on the effect of the gas puff mass and atomic constitution on the macroscopic parameters of the implosion. It has been established that during the implosion the wavelength of RT oscillation s increases, reaching a value of 0.8-1 cm at the final stage. As this takes place, bubbles appear in the plasma shell bulk. The unstable implosion of a gas puff with a large atomic weight is accompanied by an increase in the resistance of the gas puff in the run-in phase, to a value exceeding the Sp itzer resistance by two or three orders of magnitude.