Laser-driven high Mach number collisionless shock experiments on NIF and Omega

High Mach number astrophysical plasmas can create collisionless shocks via plasma instabilities and turbulence that are responsible for magnetic field generations and cosmic ray acceleration. Recently, many laboratory experiments were successful to observe the Weibel instabilities, self-generated magnetic fields, collisionless shock formation as well as non-thermal particle acceleration [1,2]. The collisionless shocks come in two flavors: one in unmagnetized and the other in magnetized background conditions. Various experimental platforms are developed to study both cases using optical Thomson scattering, particle spectrometers, and proton radiography diagnostics on Omega and NIF. Experimental measurements are compared with the electromagnetic hybrid simulation codes, in which the target and background ions are treated kinetically with particle-in-cell methods and the charge-neutralizing electrons are treated as an inertia-less adiabatic fluid [3]. This paper will present the recent results from these experiments.



[1] C. M. Huntington et al., Nature Physics, 11, 173 (2015); [2] F. Fiuza et al., Nature Physics, 16, 916 (2020); [3] S. E. Clark et al., Phys. Plasmas, 20, 082129 (2013).