Simulation of the nonlinear evolution of large scale relativistic electron flow in dense plasmas

Journal Article · Mon May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2006 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2193533· OSTI ID:20783078

Matsumoto, Toshikazu; Taguchi, Toshihiro; Mima, Kunioki ^[1]

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1. Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871 (Japan)

A relativistic electron beam of about 100 MA is transported through overdense plasmas in the fast ignition. The nonlinear dynamics of the relativistic electron beam in dense plasmas has been investigated using a two-dimensional fluid-particle hybrid (FPH) code [T. Taguchi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 5055 (2001)] that combines a particle-in cell code with an Rational Cubic Interpolated Pseudo-Particle fluid code [F. Xiao et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 93, 1 (1996)]. These simulations show that the relativistic electron beam breaks up into filaments from the Weibel instability and the filaments merge successively to larger filaments. When the relativistic electron beam diameter is large and the total current is over 100 times Alfven limit current, many large scale filaments remain after the merging process and are confined in the initial beam diameter. It is found that the number of relativistic electron filaments decreases in proportion to t{sup -0.9} in the fixed ion case and t{sup -0.2} in the mobile ion case until {omega}{sub pe0}{tau}{approx_equal}1000, respectively. This asymptotic behavior is caused by the random motion of filaments driven by fluctuating magnetic fields.

• OSTI ID: 20783078
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Journal Name: Physics of Plasmas Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 13; ISSN PHPAEN; ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
BEAM-PLASMA SYSTEMS
ELECTRON BEAMS
ELECTRONS
FLUCTUATIONS
IONS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMA
PLASMA INSTABILITY
PLASMA SIMULATION
RANDOMNESS
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS