Investigating Reconnection Driven Inductive Electric Field Leading to Particle Acceleration in a Laboratory Plasma Jet*

Transient 6 keV x-ray bursts are detected in a laboratory current-carrying plasma jet with 2 eV electron temperature. Preliminary evidence suggests that x-rays are generated when the plasma jet is choked and broken by Rayleigh-Taylor ripples. Breaking of the plasma jet should interrupt or redistribute the electric current and alter the topology of the magnetic field. We suspect this change in magnetic field causes an inductive electric field capable of accelerating charged particles to 6 keV. The collision of these high-energy particles should produce bremsstrahlung which is presumably the observed x-rays. Through numerical modeling, we are investigating the dynamics of this inductive electric field and the particle acceleration associated with it.