High-energy Nd:glass laser facility for collisionless laboratory astrophysics

Niemann, C.; Constantin, Carmen; Schaeffer, D. B.; Tauschwitz, A.; Weiland, Timothy L.; Lucky, Z.; Gekelman, Walter; Everson, E. T.; Winske, D.

doi:10.1088/1748-0221/7/03/p03010

Cited by 35 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 72 publications

(101 reference statements)

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“…The competition between these two effects thus determines that higher plasma densities (for a constant flow velocity) are more favourable to observe shocks in the laboratory. Note that, for the plasma to have low a Mach number in high density conditions, it has to support high magnetic fields, of the order of 0.1 − 1 T. This range of parameters is available, for instance, at the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) 39,40 , or at the OMEGA laser facility 41 . In both these facilities, experimental studies on collisionless laboratory astrophysics were recently conducted, including the first experimental characterizations of collisionless magnetized shocks 18,20 .…”

Section: Laboratory Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation of collisionless shocks in magnetized plasma interaction with kinetic-scale obstacles

et al. 2017

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This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/60508/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output.Formation of collisionless shocks in magnetized plasma interaction with kinetic-scale obstacles We investigate the formation of collisionless magnetized shocks triggered by the interaction between magnetized plasma flows and miniature-sized (order of plasma kinetic-scales) magnetic obstacles resorting to massively parallel, full particle-in-cell simulations, including the electron kinetics. The critical obstacle size to generate a compressed plasma region ahead of these objects is determined by independently varying the magnitude of the dipolar magnetic moment and the plasma magnetization. We find that the effective size of the obstacle depends on the relative orientation between the dipolar and plasma internal magnetic fields, and we show that this may be critical to form a shock in small-scale structures. We study the microphysics of the magnetopause in different magnetic field configurations in 2D and compare the results with full 3D simulations. Finally, we evaluate the parameter range where such miniature magnetized shocks can be explored in laboratory experiments. Published by AIP Publishing.[http://dx

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Section: Laboratory Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation of collisionless shocks in magnetized plasma interaction with kinetic-scale obstacles

et al. 2017

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“…Our collaboration has been exploring collisionless shock formation using high velocity laser-produced plasma flows. Such flows, which have been studied experimentally [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] and theoretically 14,19,[30][31][32][33][34] for a number of years, are formed when a laser heats the electrons in a target. The cloud of these electrons expands, dragging ions along, and then cools adiabatically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visualizing electromagnetic fields in laser-produced counter-streaming plasma experiments for collisionless shock laboratory astrophysics

et al. 2013

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Collisionless shocks are often observed in fast-moving astrophysical plasmas, formed by non-classical viscosity that is believed to originate from collective electromagnetic fields driven by kinetic plasma instabilities. However, the development of small-scale plasma processes into large-scale structures, such as a collisionless shock, is not well understood. It is also unknown to what extent collisionless shocks contain macroscopic fields with a long coherence length. For these reasons, it is valuable to explore collisionless shock formation, including the growth and self-organization of fields, in laboratory plasmas. The experimental results presented here show at a glance with proton imaging how macroscopic fields can emerge from a system of supersonic counter-streaming plasmas produced at the OMEGA EP laser. Interpretation of these results, plans for additional measurements, and the difficulty of achieving truly collisionless conditions are discussed. Future experiments at the National Ignition Facility are expected to create fully formed collisionless shocks in plasmas with no pre-imposed magnetic field. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

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“…In our experiment, detailed in Fig. 1, a plastic target embedded in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) 27 is irradiated by the Raptor high-energy laser 28 , producing an explosive carbon (C) and hydrogen (H) debris plasma that expands quasi-perpendicular to the magnetic field and through the steady-state, magnetized helium (He) plasma column generated by the LAPD. Under the experimental parameters, the initial perpendicular-to-B debris expansion speed of V d ≈ 600 km s −1…”

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confidence: 99%

Collisionless momentum transfer in space and astrophysical explosions

et al. 2017

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The AMPTE (Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers) mission provided in situ measurements of collisionless momentum and energy exchange between an artificial, photo-ionized barium plasma cloud and the streaming, magnetized hydrogen plasma of the solar wind [1][2][3] . One of its most significant findings was the unanticipated displacement of the barium ion 'comet head' (and an oppositely directed deflection of the streaming hydrogen ions) transverse to both the solar wind flow and the interplanetary magnetic field, defying the conventional expectation that the barium ions would simply move downwind , a collisionless momentum exchange mechanism believed to occur in various astrophysical and space-plasma environments 10,11 and to participate in cosmic magnetized collisionless shock formation [12][13][14] . Here we present the detection of Larmor coupling in a reproducible laboratory experiment that combines an explosive laser-produced plasma cloud with preformed, magnetized ambient plasma in a parameter regime relevant to the AMPTE barium releases. In our experiment, time-resolved Doppler spectroscopy reveals ambient ion acceleration transverse to both the laser-produced plasma flow and the background magnetic field. Utilizing a detailed numerical simulation, we demonstrate that the ambient ion velocity distribution corresponding to the measured Doppler-shifted spectrum is qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with Larmor coupling.The AMPTE barium release experiments aimed to better understand a ubiquitous category of astrophysical and space phenomena characterized by the rapid expansion or relative motion of a dense 'debris' plasma cloud through relatively tenuous, magnetized, ambient plasma. Examples include the expansion of stellar material through the surrounding interstellar medium in supernova remnants 10 , the formation of cometary plasma tails due to the solar wind 15 , the interaction of interplanetary coronal mass ejections with the Earth's magnetosphere 16 , and man-made ionospheric explosions 17 . In these rarified environments, the Coulomb collisional mean free paths exceed the observed interaction length scales by many orders of magnitude, signifying that the debris plasma exchanges momentum and energy with the ambient plasma via collisionless, collective, electromagnetic effects. In addition, the relative motion of the debris cloud produces electric polarization fields between the magnetically confined electrons and the relatively freestreaming ions, resulting in E × B drift electron currents that expel the magnetic field within the cloud volume (the diamagnetic cavity) and enhance it at the cloud edge (the magnetic compression) 18 . The general evolution in the reference frame of the magnetized ambient plasma is thus a deceleration of the debris cloud as it couples to the ambient plasma via collisionless processes and deforms the magnetic field.We here consider explosive astrophysical and space environments characterized by a perpendicular-to-B debris plasma flow speed V d that exceed...

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High-energy Nd:glass laser facility for collisionless laboratory astrophysics

Cited by 35 publications

References 72 publications

Formation of collisionless shocks in magnetized plasma interaction with kinetic-scale obstacles

Formation of collisionless shocks in magnetized plasma interaction with kinetic-scale obstacles

Visualizing electromagnetic fields in laser-produced counter-streaming plasma experiments for collisionless shock laboratory astrophysics

Collisionless momentum transfer in space and astrophysical explosions

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