Properties of radiatively cooled supersonic plasma jets formed by ablation of thin Al foils driven by 1.4 MA, 250 ns current pulse are presented. The jets are highly collimated with half-opening angles of ~2°. Measurements of the flow velocity (~60 km/s) and plasma temperature (~15 eV) in the jet with Thomson scattering diagnostic give internal Mach number of M ~ 3, suggesting additional collimation of the jet by toroidal magnetic fields.

The formation of supersonic, radiatively cooled plasma jets with applications to laboratory astrophysics has been an active area of research on the MAGPIE generator. One of the ways of producing astrophysically-relevant jets in the laboratory is by using the ablation of plasma from a radial foil Z-pinch. In this configuration a ~1.4 MA, 250 ns current pulse is introduced into an aluminium disk with a thickness of 15 μm. The ablated plasma from the foil converges on the axis, producing a steady and collimated jet with a typical axial velocity of ~100 km/s. The setup allows for the addition of argon above the foil for jet-ambient interaction studies. The interaction is characterised by the formation of several shock features, which are presented and discussed from experimental data and numerical simulations.

Collimated outflows (jets) are ubiquitous in the universe, appearing around sources as diverse as protostars and extragalactic supermassive black holes. Jets are thought to be magnetically collimated, and launched from a magnetized accretion disk surrounding a compact gravitating object. We have developed the first laboratory experiment to address time-dependent, episodic phenomena relevant to the poorly understood jet acceleration and collimation region (Ciardi et al., 2009). The experiments were performed on the MAGPIE pulsed power facility (1.5 MA, 250 ns) at Imperial College. The experimental results show the periodic ejections of magnetic bubbles naturally evolving into a heterogeneous jet propagating inside a channel made of self-collimated magnetic cavities. The results provide a unique view of the possible transition from a relatively steady-state jet launching to the observed highly structured outflows.

With the aim to model jets produced by conical wire arrays on the MAGPIE generator, and to strengthen the link between laboratory and astrophysical jets, we performed three-dimensional magneto-hydro-dynamic numerical simulations using the code GORGON and successfully reproduced the experiments. We found that a minimum resolution of ~100 μm is required to retrieve the unstable character of the jet. Moreover, arrays with less wires produce more unstable jets with stronger magnetic fields around them.

The authors have studied the frequency and nature of associated malformations in a series of 1000 patients with congenital heart disease. Etiological factors have been statistically analyzed, too.

The authors report on six patients exhibiting a congenital heart disease and malformations of the upper limbs. In two of them this association is similar to that described by Holt and Oram in 1960: atrial septal defect, heart arrythmia and abnormal thumbs. The other four patients have the same skeletal anomalies but different heart malformations. Dermatoglyphic studies revealed a high frequency of a distal position of the axial triradius and of an equivalent of a simian crease. The karyotypes are all normal. The etiology is discussed.

A child, aged 11, with female phenotype, associating a sacrococcygeal agenesis to Bonnevie-Ullrich's syndrome, without gonadal dysgenesis, is described. The patient's caryotype is a normal female one (44 A, XX). No similar cases could be found in the literature.

This association of two syndromes of undetermined origin is probably fortuitous. A genetic study of 65 pedigrees from the literature did not reveal a mendelian type of inheritance. The possibility of external factors having occurred during embryonic life is discussed.