Characterizing Filamentary Magnetic Structures in Counter-Streaming Plasmas by Fourier Analysis of Proton Images

ORAL

Abstract

Proton imaging is a powerful tool for probing electromagnetic fields in high-energy-density plasmas, providing a path-integrated map of the field topology. However, inferring the underlying field structure from proton images of the filamentary magnetic fields produced by the Weibel instability in counterstreaming plasmas has been challenging. In this talk we show that, in general, proton image features directly correspond to the size of the individual magnetic structures and not to the spacing between them (unless they are correlated). For the Weibel instability, the size of the magnetic filaments can be accurately determined via Fourier analysis of the proton images. This work has been published in Phys. Plasmas 26, 102303 (2019); doi: 10.1063/1.5100728

*This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy SLAC Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, the U.S. DOE Office of Science, Fusion Energy Sciences under Nos. FWP 100182 and FWP 100237, the U.S. DOE Early Career Research Program under No. FWP 100331, the U.S. DOE NNSA-DS and SC-OFES Joint Program in High-Energy-Density Laboratory Plasmas, Grant No. DE-NA0002956, the National Laser User Facility Program and William Marsh Rice University, Grant No. R19071, and the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester by the NNSA/OICF under Cooperative Agreement No. DE-NA0001944.

Authors

  • Joseph Levesque

    • Univ of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  • C.C. Kuranz

    • University of Michigan
    • Univ of Michigan - Ann Arbor
    • U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    • Nuclear Engineering \& Radiological Sciences Department, University of Michigan
  • Timothy Handy

    • None
  • Mario Manuel

    • General Atomics-San Diego
    • General Atomics
  • Frederico Fiuza

    • SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
    • High Energy Density Science Division, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA
    • SLAC - Natl Accelerator Lab
    • SLAC