Simultaneous Spectroscopic Determination of Ion Temperature, Electron Density, and Magnetic Field for the ZaP-HD Experiment

Abstract

For over a decade, the ZaP Flow Z-Pinch experiment has demonstrated a sheared-flow stabi- lized Z-pinch, a linear plasma configuration with longitudinal current flow and azimuthal magnetic field confinement. A recent upgrade to the ZaP experiment, named ZaP-HD, looks to investigate the scaling relation that could plot its course towards a viable fusion reactor. This thesis documents the simultaneous measurement of the key magnetohydrodynamic parameters of ion temperature, electron density, and magnetic field on the ZaP-HD experiment. Temperature, electron density, and magnetic field each contribute a unique line-altering mechanism to the line radiation emitted from the ZaP-HD plasma. Through a least-squares fit in both the natural and Fourier domain to the emission spectrum of a C IV line at 581.2 nm known a priori to have the form of a Voigt profile, each of the desired parameters can be resolved for sufficiently small noise levels. Noise levels, de- fined as the ratio of the standard deviation of the noise in a dark region of the spectrum to the peak signal amplitude, at or below around 1% provide measurements corroborated by other diagnostics on the ZaP-HD experiment.