Formation of radiatively cooled, supersonically rotating, plasma flows in Z-pinch experiments: Towards the development of an experimental platform to study accretion disk physics in the laboratory

We present data from the first Z-pinch experiments aiming to simulate aspects of accretion disk physics in the laboratory. Using off axis ablation flows from a wire array z-pinch we demonstrate the formation of a supersonically (M ∼ 2) rotating hollow plasma cylinder of height ∼4 mm and radius 2 mm. Using a combination of diagnostics we measure the rotation speed (∼60 kms−1), electron density (1019 cm−3), ion temperature (Ti ∼ 60 eV) and the product of electron temperature and average ionisation (ZTe ∼ 150 to 200 eV). Using these parameters we calculate the Reynolds number for the plasma on the order 105 and magnetic Reynolds number as 10 - 100. The plasma flow is maintained for 150 ns, corresponding to one rotation period, which should allow for studying fast instabilities which develop on this time-scale.