The Physics of Ion Decoupling in Magnetized Plasma Explosions
When a finite pulse of plasma expands into a magnetized background plasma, MHD predicts the pulse expel background plasma and its B-field - i.e. cause a magnetic 'bubble'. The expanding plasma is confined within the bubble, later to escape down the B-field lines. MHD suggests that the debris energy goes to expelling the B-field from the bubble volume and kinetic energy of the displaced background. For HANEs, this is far from the complete story. For many realistic HANE regimes, the long mean-free-path for collisions necessitates a Kinetic Ion Simulation Model (KISM). The most obvious effect is that the debris plasma can decouple and slip through the background plasma. The implications are: (1) the magnetic bubble is not as large as expected and (2) the debris is no longer confined within the magnetic bubble.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 1030221
- Report Number(s):
- LLNL-CONF-470416; TRN: US201124%%22
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Presented at: 2011 HEART Conference, Orlando, FL, United States, Mar 26 - Apr 02, 2011
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Final report for the NSF/DOE partnership in basic plasma science grant DE-FG02-06ER54906 'Laser-driven collisionless shocks in the Large Plasma Device'
Astrophysical Explosions Revisited: Collisionless Coupling of Debris to Magnetized Plasma