Robustness of the filamentation instability for asymmetric plasma shells collision in arbitrarily oriented magnetic field

Journal Article · Tue Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4825236· OSTI ID:22218584

Bret, A. ^[1]

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1. ETSI Industriales, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 13071 Ciudad Real, Spain and Instituto de Investigaciones Energticas y Aplicaciones Industriales, Campus Universitario de Ciudad Real, 13071 Ciudad Real (Spain)

The filamentation instability triggered when two counter streaming plasma shells overlap appears to be the main mechanism by which collisionless shocks are generated. It has been known for long that a flow aligned magnetic field can completely suppress this instability. In a recent paper [Phys. Plasmas 18, 080706 (2011)], it was demonstrated in two dimensions that for the case of two cold, symmetric, relativistically colliding shells, such cancellation cannot occur if the field is not perfectly aligned. Here, this result is extended to the case of two asymmetric shells. The filamentation instability appears therefore as an increasingly robust mechanism to generate shocks.

• OSTI ID: 22218584
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 10; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ASYMMETRY
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA WAVES
RELATIVISTIC PLASMA
SHOCK WAVES
SYMMETRY