Numerical Modeling of Plasma-Liner Formation and Implosion for PLX-{\$}$\backslash $alpha{\$}*

Numerical simulations of spherically imploding plasma liners formed by merging hypersonic plasma jets have been performed using the FronTier and smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) codes in support of the PLX-{\$}$\backslash $alpha{\$} project. The physics includes radiation, Braginskii thermal conductivity and ion viscosity, and tabular EOS (LTE and non-LTE). Solid-angle-averaged and standard deviation of liner ram pressure and Mach number reveal variations in these properties during formation and implosion. Spherical-harmonic mode-number analysis of spherical slices of ram pressure at various radii and times provide a quantitative means to assess the evolution of liner non-uniformity. Simulations of 6 and 7 jets support near-term experiments, and synthetic spectra and line-integrated densities are compared with experimental data.