Thermalization of the plasma arising during counter collision of high-energy plasma flows in a longitudinal magnetic field

Abstract This work is devoted to the study of thermalization of plasma created by head-on collisions of high-energy plasma flows in a longitudinal magnetic field of 0.5–2 T. Hydrodynamic flows contained the energy of 200 kJ with velocities from 2 × 107 to 4 × 107 cm/s and ion density from 2 × 1015 to 4 × 1015 cm−3 were created inside the 2MK-200 facility by two electrodynamic plasma accelerators equipped by a system of pulsed gas injection. Nitrogen, neon and their mixtures with hydrogen and deuterium were implemented as working gases. A process of plasma creating was investigated by near-wall magnetic probes situated in different parts of the interaction chamber. Temporal evolution of the plasma electron temperature had been traced by x-ray photodiodes covered by different filters. It was discovered that the plasma electron temperature changed insignificantly during 6–8 μs after it reached the maximum value, which means that it ionization state can be considered as quasi-stationary.