We have developed conceptual designs of two petawatt-class pulsed-power accelerators: Z 300 and Z 800. The designs are based on an accelerator architecture that is founded on two concepts: single-stage electrical-pulse compression and impedance matching [Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 10, 030401 (2007)]. The prime power source of each machine consists of 90 linear-transformer-driver (LTD) modules. Each module comprises LTD cavities connected electrically in series, each of which is powered by 5-GW LTD bricks connected electrically in parallel. (A brick comprises a single switch and two capacitors in series.) Six water-insulated radial-transmission-line impedance transformers transport the power generated by the modules to a six-level vacuum-insulator stack. The stack serves as the accelerator's water-vacuum interface. The stack is connected to six conical outer magnetically insulated vacuum transmission lines (MITLs), which are joined in parallel at a 10-cm radius by a triple-post-hole vacuum convolute. The convolute sums the electrical currents at the outputs of the six outer MITLs, and delivers the combined current to a single short inner MITL. The inner MITL transmits the combined current to the accelerator's physics-package load. Z 300 is 35 m in diameter and stores 48 MJ of electrical energy in its LTD capacitors. The accelerator generates 320 TW of electrical power at the output of the LTD system, and delivers 48 MA in 154 ns to a magnetized-liner inertial-fusion (MagLIF) target [Phys. Plasmas 17, 056303 (2010)]. The peak electrical power at the MagLIF target is 870 TW, which is the highest power throughout the accelerator. Power amplification is accomplished by the centrally located vacuum section, which serves as an intermediate inductive-energy-storage device. The principal goal of Z 300 is to achieve thermonuclear ignition; i.e., a fusion yield that exceeds the energy transmitted by the accelerator to the liner. 2D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations suggest Z 300 will deliver 4.3 MJ to the liner, and achieve a yield on the order of 18 MJ. Z 800 is 52 m in diameter and stores 130 MJ. This accelerator generates 890 TW at the output of its LTD system, and delivers 65 MA in 113 ns to a MagLIF target. The peak electrical power at the MagLIF liner is 2500 TW. The principal goal of Z 800 is to achieve high-yield Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

We have developed 1D analytic and 2D fully electromagnetic models of radial transmission-line impedance transformers. The models have been used to quantify the power-transport efficiency and pulse sharpening of such transformers as a function of voltage pulse width and impedance profile. For the cases considered, we find that in the limit as ÿ ! 0 (where ÿ is the ratio of the pulse width to the one-way transit time of the transformer), the transport efficiency is maximized when the impedance profile is exponential. As ÿ increases from zero, the optimum profile gradually deviates from an exponential. A numerical procedure is presented that determines the optimum profile for a given pulse shape and width. The procedure can be applied to optimize the design of impedance transformers used in petawatt-class pulsedpower accelerators.

Pulsed-power driven x-ray radiographic systems are being developed to operate at higher power in an effort to increase source brightness and penetration power. Essential to the design of these systems is a thorough understanding of electron power flow in the transmission line that couples the pulsed-power driver to the load. In this paper, analytic theory and fully relativistic particle-in-cell simulations are used to model power flow in several experimental transmission-line geometries fielded on Sandia National Laboratories' upgraded Radiographic Integrated Test Stand [IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 28, 1653 (2000)]. Good agreement with measured electrical currents is demonstrated on a shot-by-shot basis for simulations which include detailed models accounting for space-charge-limited electron emission, surface heating, and stimulated particle emission. Resonant cavity modes related to the transmission-line impedance transitions are also shown to be excited by electron power flow. These modes can drive oscillations in the output power of the system, degrading radiographic resolution.

The ion-hose instability is a transverse electrostatic instability which occurs on electron beams in the presence of a low-density ion channel. It is a phenomenon quite similar to the interaction between electron clouds and proton or positron beams in high-energy accelerators and storage rings. In the DARHT-2 accelerator, the 2-kA, 2-s beam pulse produces an ion channel through impact ionization of the residual background gas (10 ÿ7 -10 ÿ6 torr). A calculation of the linear growth by Briggs indicates that the instability could be strong enough to affect the radiographic application of DARHT, which requires that transverse oscillations be small compared to the beam radius. We present semianalytical theory and 3D particle-in-cell simulations (using the LSP code) of the linear and nonlinear growth of the instability, including the effects of the temporal change in the ion density and spatially decreasing beam radius. We find that the number of e-foldings experienced by a given beam slice is given approximately by an analytic expression using the local channel density at the beam slice. Hence, in the linear regime, the number of e-foldings increases linearly from head to tail of the beam pulse since it is proportional to the ion density. We also find that growth is strongly suppressed by nonlinear effects at relatively small oscillation amplitudes of the electron beam. This is because the ion oscillation amplitude is several times larger than that of the beam, allowing nonlinear effects to come into play. An analogous effect has recently been noted in electron-proton instabilities in high-energy accelerators and storage rings. For DARHT-2 parameters, we find that a pressure of 1:5 10 ÿ7 torr is needed to keep the transverse beam oscillation amplitude less than about 20% of the rms beam radius.

The concept of a parametric antenna in ionospheric plasma is analyzed. Such antennas are capable of exciting electromagnetic radiation fields, specifically the creation of whistler waves generated at the very low frequency (VLF) range, which are also capable of propagating large distances away from the source region. The mechanism of whistler wave generation is considered a parametric interaction of quasi-electrostatic low oblique resonance (LOR) oscillations excited by 1conventional loop antenna. The transformation of LOR waves on quasi-neutral density perturbations in the near field of an antenna gives rise to whistler waves on combination frequencies. It is shown in this work that the amplitude of these waves can considerably exceed the amplitude of whistler waves directly excited by a loop. Additionally, particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, which demonstrate the excitation and spatial structure of VLF waves excited by a loop antenna, is presented. Possible applications including the wave-particle interactions to mitigate performance anomalies of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, active space experiments, communication via VLF waves, and modification experiments in the ionosphere will be discussed.