Anomalous plasma acceleration in colliding high-power laser-produced plasmas
arXiv:1909.02880 · doi:10.1063/1.5100197
Abstract
We developed an experimental platform for studying magnetic reconnection in an external magnetic field with simultaneous measurements of plasma imaging, flow velocity, and magnetic-field variation. Here, we investigate the stagnation and acceleration in counter-streaming plasmas generated by high-power laser beams. A plasma flow perpendicular to the initial flow directions is measured with laser Thomson scattering. The flow is, interestingly, accelerated toward the high-density region, which is opposite to the direction of the acceleration by pressure gradients. This acceleration is possibly interpreted by the interaction of two magnetic field loops initially generated by Biermann battery effect, resulting in a magnetic reconnection forming a single field loop and additional acceleration by a magnetic tension force.
arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures, Physics of Plasmas, in press
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Cited by in corpus (6)
- High-power laser experiment forming a supercritical collisionless shock in a magnetized uniform plasma at rest
- Laser astrophysics experiment on the amplification of magnetic fields by shock-induced interfacial instabilities
- Collective Thomson scattering in non-equilibrium laser produced two-stream plasmas
- High-power laser experiment on developing supercritical shock propagating in homogeneously magnetized plasma of ambient gas origin
- Detection of current-sheet and bipolar ion flows in a self-generated antiparallel magnetic field of laser-produced plasmas for magnetic reconnection research
- Nonthermal electron and ion acceleration by magnetic reconnection in large laser-driven plasmas