Next-generation magnetic nozzle prototype

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This project sought to develop a next-generation magnetic nozzle. The project engaged the fundamental physics of plasma- magnetic field interactions to attain plasma accelerator control that is significantly more advanced than the present state-of-the-art. Central to next-generation magnetic nozzle design and development is the ability to precisely predict the interaction of flowing magnetized plasma with self-generated and applied magnetic fields. This predictive capability must order physical processes in a way that preserves accuracy while allowing for the rapid evaluation of many different nozzle configurations. Large, ``off-the-shelf``, numerical codes are not well suited to nozzle design applications in that they lack the necessary non-ideal physics and are not well disposed to rapid design evaluation. For example, we know that both non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects, such as Hall drifts and finite ion- gyro-radius kinetics, are important constituents of magnetic nozzle performance. We built a special purpose code to allow system design