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Title: A laboratory model for the Parker spiral and magnetized stellar winds

Abstract

Many rotating stars have magnetic fields that interact with the winds they produce. The Sun is no exception. The interaction between the Sun’s magnetic field and the solar wind gives rise to the heliospheric magnetic field – a spiraling magnetic structure, known as the Parker Spiral, which pervades the solar system. This magnetic field is significant for governing plasma processes that source the solar wind. In this work, we report the creation of a laboratory model of the Parker spiral system based on a rapidly-rotating plasma magnetosphere and the measurement of its global structure and dynamic behaviour. This laboratory system exhibits regions where the plasma flows evolve similarly to many magnetized stellar winds. We observe the advection of magnetic field into an Archimedean spiral and the ejection of quasi-periodic plasma blobs into the stellar outflow, which mimics the observed plasmoids that fuel the slow solar wind. This process involves magnetic reconnection and can be modelled numerically by the inclusion of two-fluid effects in the simulation. The Parker spiral system mirrored in the laboratory can be used for studying solar wind dynamics in complementary fashion to conventional space missions such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1579658
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0018266
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nature Physics
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 15; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 1745-2473
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group (NPG)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY

Citation Formats

Peterson, Ethan E., Endrizzi, Douglass A., Beidler, Matthew, Bunkers, Kyle J., Clark, Michael, Egedal, Jan, Flanagan, Ken, McCollam, Karsten J., Milhone, Jason, Olson, Joseph, Sovinec, Carl R., Waleffe, Roger, Wallace, John, and Forest, Cary B. A laboratory model for the Parker spiral and magnetized stellar winds. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1038/s41567-019-0592-7.
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Peterson, Ethan E., Endrizzi, Douglass A., Beidler, Matthew, Bunkers, Kyle J., Clark, Michael, Egedal, Jan, Flanagan, Ken, McCollam, Karsten J., Milhone, Jason, Olson, Joseph, Sovinec, Carl R., Waleffe, Roger, Wallace, John, & Forest, Cary B. A laboratory model for the Parker spiral and magnetized stellar winds. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0592-7
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Peterson, Ethan E., Endrizzi, Douglass A., Beidler, Matthew, Bunkers, Kyle J., Clark, Michael, Egedal, Jan, Flanagan, Ken, McCollam, Karsten J., Milhone, Jason, Olson, Joseph, Sovinec, Carl R., Waleffe, Roger, Wallace, John, and Forest, Cary B. Mon . "A laboratory model for the Parker spiral and magnetized stellar winds". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0592-7. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1579658.
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@article{osti_1579658,
title = {A laboratory model for the Parker spiral and magnetized stellar winds},
author = {Peterson, Ethan E. and Endrizzi, Douglass A. and Beidler, Matthew and Bunkers, Kyle J. and Clark, Michael and Egedal, Jan and Flanagan, Ken and McCollam, Karsten J. and Milhone, Jason and Olson, Joseph and Sovinec, Carl R. and Waleffe, Roger and Wallace, John and Forest, Cary B.},
abstractNote = {Many rotating stars have magnetic fields that interact with the winds they produce. The Sun is no exception. The interaction between the Sun’s magnetic field and the solar wind gives rise to the heliospheric magnetic field – a spiraling magnetic structure, known as the Parker Spiral, which pervades the solar system. This magnetic field is significant for governing plasma processes that source the solar wind. In this work, we report the creation of a laboratory model of the Parker spiral system based on a rapidly-rotating plasma magnetosphere and the measurement of its global structure and dynamic behaviour. This laboratory system exhibits regions where the plasma flows evolve similarly to many magnetized stellar winds. We observe the advection of magnetic field into an Archimedean spiral and the ejection of quasi-periodic plasma blobs into the stellar outflow, which mimics the observed plasmoids that fuel the slow solar wind. This process involves magnetic reconnection and can be modelled numerically by the inclusion of two-fluid effects in the simulation. The Parker spiral system mirrored in the laboratory can be used for studying solar wind dynamics in complementary fashion to conventional space missions such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission.},
doi = {10.1038/s41567-019-0592-7},
journal = {Nature Physics},
number = 10,
volume = 15,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {7}
}
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Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0592-7
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Cited by: 1 work
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Figures / Tables:

FIG. 1 FIG. 1: A laboratory recipe for creating a Parker spiral and stellar wind. Drawing current from anodes in the plasma atmosphere to a virtual cathode in the magnetosphere creates a cross field current, JR, and associated torque on the plasma (a). This torque drives plasma rotation shown by the toroidalmore » velocity Vφ (green solid line in b). The rotation becomes super-Alfvénic at the radius denoted by the star when the rotation speed surpasses the Alfvénic speed, VA (blue dash-dot line in b). This super-Alfvénic rotation launches a radial wind shown by VR (orange dashed line in b). This wind then stretches magnetic field lines outward while they are twisted into a spiral by rapid rotation, forming the magnetic structures shown in a. This evolution produces a separatrix between the closed and open ux surfaces { a characteristic that is universal to many magnetized winds and the understanding of which is vital to the study of stellar momentum transport and evolution. The experimental procedure to create the Parker spiral system is described in more detail in Methods and a schematic of the experiment can be seen in c.« less
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    TABLE I (p. 7)table
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