Mining magnetized liner inertial fusion data: trends in stagnation morphology*

In the magnetized liner inertial fusion concept, a cylindrical metallic tube filled with fusion fuel is imploded with the goal of producing a one-dimensional plasma column at thermonuclear conditions. However, self-emission x-ray images of the stagnating fuel plasma show rich structure indicative of three-dimensional effects. It is not yet fully understood which experimental input conditions have the greatest contribution to the development of three-dimensional structure that can degrade confinement and performance. We demonstrate the use of a linear regression method on a set of preprocessed experimental data to explore potential correlations between inputs and stagnation structure. Our results indicate that several unexplored effects may play a role in modifying development of structure. For example, we provide the first indications that increasing the initial applied magnetic field may substantially reduce kink-like structure in the stagnated fuel plasma. In conjunction with several counter-intuitive null results, we expect the observed correlations will encourage further experimental, theoretical, and simulation-based studies. We note that the method used in this work is general and may be applied to explore other experimentally measured quantities.