ICME astrophysical scaling experiments in BRB

Using the Big Red Ball (BRB) at the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory (WiPPL), we launched a compact torus (CT) of plasma into a background plasma to study a scaled Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection (ICME) passing through a magnetic field gradient. ICMEs are solar ejections that are the source of geomagnetic storms. Being able to create a scaled ICME in the lab would allow us to improve our understanding beyond simulations and observational data. In our experiments, we observed the position of the shock, sheath, and ejecta. The background plasma had a temperature of ~20eV and a density of 3e12 cm-3 with an average applied magnetic field of 15 G. This led to a plasma beta around 6-9, which is higher than desired for the scaling of our experiment to an ICME event. We show preliminary experimental results and discuss the importance of scaling arguments and scaling parameters.