Preliminary results of the self-emission of charged particles from
magnetically driven plasma jets has been investigated. The jets were launched
and driven by a toroidal magnetic field generated by introducing a ∼1.4 MA,
250 ns electrical current pulse from the MAGPIE generator into a radial
wire array. This configuration has shown to reproduce some aspects of the
astrophysical magnetic-tower jet launching model, in which a jet is collimated
by a toroidal magnetic field inside a magnetic cavity. The emission of ions and
protons from the plasma was recorded onto Columbia Resin 39 plates using timeintegrated
pinhole cameras. In addition a fly-eye camera, an array of 25–496
cylindrical apertures allowed estimating the location of the ion emitting source.
The results show the ion emission comes from both the jet and its surrounding
magnetic cavity, with the emission extending to a height of at least ∼9 cm from
the initial position of the wires. The emission of ions is consistent with the dynamics of the jet obtained from time-resolved imaging diagnostics, i.e. optical
laser probing and self-emission of the plasma in the extreme ultra-violet. These
preliminary results suggest the ions are trapped inside the cavity due to the strong
toroidal magnetic field which drives the jet. In addition these studies provide
first estimates of the energy and fluence of protons for future laser-driven proton
probing diagnostics aimed at measuring the magnetic field in these experiments.