High Repetition Rate Mapping of the Collisonless Coupling Between a Super-Alfvénic Piston Plasma and Magnetized Ambient Plasma

ORAL

Abstract

We present two-dimensional mapping of a super-Alfvénic (MA > 1) carbon, laser produced plasma (LPP) as it couples to an ambient, magnetized helium plasma through collisionless, collective processes. The data was acquired during recent experiments performed on the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) at the University of California, Los Angeles as part of a series of experiments recreating conditions observed in Earth’s magnetosphere for study in the laboratory. The Laminar coupling is investigated by utilizing laser induced fluorescence to measure the phase-space evolution of the LPP ions in conjunction with magnetic field traces that measure the energy departed into the ambient ions. The acquisition of this data requires a high repetition rate (~ 1 Hz) as each dataset represent thousands of laser shots in order to fully investigate the two-dimensional region of interest. The data is compared to fully kinetic, 2D3V PIC simulations in order to provide a framework in which we can understand the coupling and contextualize our results in the astrophysical environment.

*This work was supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC under Contract No. B643014 and B649519, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DESC0017900, and the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship Research Program (Award No. DGE-1650604). The experiments were performed at the UCLA Basic Plasma Science Facility (BaPSF), which is a collaborative research facility supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Fusion Energy Sciences program, and the National Science Foundation.

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Presenters

  • Robert S Dorst

    • University of California, Los Angeles

Authors

  • Robert S Dorst

    • University of California, Los Angeles

  • Ari Le

    • Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • Carmen G Constantin

    • University of California, Los Angeles
    • UCLA

  • Jessica J Pilgram

    • University of California, Los Angeles

  • Derek B Schaeffer

    • Princeton University

  • Steve T Vincena

    • University of California, Los Angeles
    • UCLA

  • Shreekrishna Tripathi

    • University of California, Los Angeles

  • Dan Winske

    • Los Alamos Natl Lab

  • Misa Cowee

    • Los Alamos Natl Lab
    • Los Alamos National Laboratory

  • David J Larson

    • Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab

  • Christoph Niemann

    • University of California, Los Angeles