A second series of experiments were performed in August 2017 on the Clam Shell Magnetically-Insulated Transmission Line1 (CSMITL2) at the Saturn accelerator at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. In the first series of experiments in March 2017, the CSMITL2 demonstrated utilizing four vacuum-insulator levels instead of the two in CSMITL1, increasing the load power by a factor of four compared to CSMITL1 delivering 8 TW to the load, and polarity inversion of the power pulse. Obj ectives for the second series included multiple shot per day capability and large ion current densities from a large-area flashover ion diode source.
Quark nuggets are theoretical objects composed of approximately equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks and are also called strangelets and nuclearites. They have been proposed as a candidate for dark matter, which constitutes ~85% of the universe's mass and which has been a mystery for decades. Previous efforts to detect quark nuggets assumed that the nuclear-density core interacts directly with the surrounding matter so the stopping power is minimal. Tatsumi found that quark nuggets could well exist as a ferromagnetic liquid with a ∼1012-T magnetic field. We find that the magnetic field produces a magnetopause with surrounding plasma, as the earth's magnetic field produces a magnetopause with the solar wind, and substantially increases their energy deposition rate in matter. We use the magnetopause model to compute the energy deposition as a function of quark-nugget mass and to analyze testing the quark-nugget hypothesis for dark matter by observations in air, water, and land. We conclude the water option is most promising.
Recent Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion experiments at the Sandia National Laboratories Z pulsed power facility have featured a PDV (Photonic Doppler Velocimetry) diagnostic in the final power feed section for measuring load current. In this paper, we report on an anomalous pressure that is detected on this PDV diagnostic very early in time during the current ramp. Early time load currents that are greater than both B-dot upstream current measurements and existing Z machine circuit models by at least 1 MA would be necessary to describe the measured early time velocity of the PDV flyer. This leads us to infer that the pressure producing the early time PDV flyer motion cannot be attributed to the magnetic pressure of the load current but rather to an anomalous pressure. Using the MHD code ALEGRA, we are able to compute a time-dependent anomalous pressure function, which when added to the magnetic pressure of the load current, yields simulated flyer velocities that are in excellent agreement with the PDV measurement. We also provide plausible explanations for what could be the origin of the anomalous pressure.
The usual divisions of science and technology into pure research applied research, development, demonstration, and production creates impediments for moving knowledge into socially useful products and services. This failing has been previously discussed without concrete suggestions of how to improve the situation. In the proposed framework the divisive and artificial distinctions of basic and applied are softened, and the complementary and somewhat overlapping roles of universities, corporations, and federal labs are clarified to enable robust partnerships. As a collegial group of scientists and technologists from industry, university, and government agencies and their national laboratories, we have worked together to clarify this framework. We offer the results in hopes of improving the results from investments in science and technology and thereby helping strengthen the social contract between the public and private investors and the scientists-technologists.
Personnel at Sandia National Laboratories, the Naval Research Laboratory, Cornell University, and Los Alamos National Laboratory are developing cost effective beams of lithium ions to bridge the energy gap between lasers and underground nuclear explosions in the national Inertial Fusion Program. We plan to probe the threshold for igniting thermonuclear fuel in the laboratory on the Particle Beam Fusion Accelerator II (PBFA II). We have met our April 1, 1989, milestone of 5 trillion watts per square centimeter power density on PBFA II. We wish to adapt the existing Hermes III accelerator at Sandia into a pre-prototype module of the DOE Laboratory Microfusion Facility for military applications in support of the DOE decision in the mid 90s on the best particle beam or laser for the facility. A German-American study concludes that our lithium ion approach offers the lowest cost option for fusion energy. 7 figs.