Conditions for Debris-Background Ion Interactions and Collisionless Shock Wave Generation

[摘要] We use hybrid simulations and simple theoretical arguments to determine when debris ions streaming relative to background ions in a collisionless, magnetized plasma couple strongly enough to generate a magnetosonic shock wave. We consider three types of configurations: one-dimensional, the two-dimensional extension of the 1-D case, and a more complex 2-D geometry that contains some effects that would be found in a laser-produced, laboratory plasma. We show that the simulation results as well as previous Russian and LLNL results reduce to a simple condition (R{sub m}/{rho}{sub d} = equal mass radius/debris ion gyroradius {ge} 0.7) for the generation of a shock wave. Strong debris interaction with the background is characterized by the formation of a magnetic pulse that steepens and speeds up as it encounters the debris ions deflected by the magnetic field. The pulse further evolves into a shock. As the earlier work has indicated, the process also involves the generation of a transverse electric field perpendicular to the flow and the magnetic field that accelerates the background ions radially outward, which in turn causes the speedup of the pulse. With electric and magnetic field probes, the UCLA laser experiments should be able to detect these signatures of coupling as well as the generation of the shock wave.

[发布日期] 2012-07-10

[学科分类] 原子、分子光学和等离子物理

[关键词] ELECTRIC FIELDS;GEOMETRY;LASERS;LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL LABORATORY;MAGNETIC FIELDS;PLASMA;PROBES;SHOCK WAVES;SIMULATION;UCLA