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. This data exploration method incorporates several unstructured data sources that have not previously been considered when exploring stagnation morphology. 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. We also find indications that structure in the “current return can” may lead to development of dependence of stagnation structure on view angle. 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 and different plasma and high energy density science platforms.
*SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525