Time Evolution of Collisionless Shock in Counterstreaming Laser-Produced Plasmas

Abstract

We investigated the time evolution of a strong collisionless shock in counterstreaming plasmas produced using a high-power laser pulse. The counterstreaming plasmas were generated by irradiating a CH double-plane target with the laser. In self-emission streaked optical pyrometry data, steepening of the self-emission profile as the two-plasma interaction evolved indicated shock formation. The shock thickness was less than the mean free path of the counterstreaming ions. Two-dimensional snapshots of the self-emission and shadowgrams also showed very thin shock structures. The Mach numbers estimated from the flow velocity and the brightness temperatures are very high.

Formation of counterstreaming plasmas for collisionless shock experiment

“…In Fig. 2(d) one can see a smooth shock structure in front of the right plane as seen in the previous work [7].…”

“…Recently, experimental researches have been carried out using high power laser systems [4][5][6][7]. A bow shock has been generated by placing a solid obstacle in the path of a high-velocity laser ablation plasma [4].…”

“…A bow shock has been generated by placing a solid obstacle in the path of a high-velocity laser ablation plasma [4]. Formation of high-Mach number collisionless electrostatic shock wave in counterstreaming plasmas using a double-plane target has been reported [6,7]. It is essential to generate the plasmas that a e-mail: kuramitsu-y@ile.osaka-u.ac.jp This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.…”

Laboratory Scale Experiments for Collisionless Shock Generated by Taper-Cone-Shaped Plasma Focus Device

“…In order to generate the astrophysical phenomena in laboratory scale, a hypersonic plasma flow obtained by a laser ablation or a pulsed-power discharge is considered [8][9][10][11][12][13]. The hypersonic plasma flow obtained by the laser ablation techniques is required the intense laser due to the energy deposition on a solid target.…”

Two-fluid simulations of shock wave propagation and shock-bubble interaction in collisionless plasma

“…6 Recently, high-power laser facilities have been available to launch a shock wave propagating at a speed of the order of 1000 km/s into background tenuous plasma. 7 Relevant two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations suggested the possibility of turbulent shock waves suffering from micro-instabilities. 8,9 The instability physics are interesting because they have great impact on such applications as a laser particle accelerator 10 and inertial confinement fusion.…”