Determination of a macro- to micro-scale progression leading to a magnetized plasma disruption
Abstract
We report here the observations of a plasma jet evolving through a macro- to micro-scale progression sequence. This leads to a fast magnetic reconnection that results in the jet breaking off from its originating electrode and forming a force-free state. A sausage-like pinching occurs first and squeezes an initially fat, short magnetized jet so that it becomes thin. The thin jet then becomes kink unstable. The lengthening of the jet by the kinking thins the jet even more since the kink is an incompressible instability. When the jet radius becomes comparable to the ion-skin depth, Hall and electron inertial physics become important and establish the environment for a fast magnetic reconnection. This fast reconnection occurs, disrupting the jet and establishing a force-free state. X-ray bursts and whistler waves, evidence of a magnetic reconnection, are observed when the plasma jet breaks off from the electrode. This experimentally confirmed sequence of successive thinning from pinching followed by kinking is reproduced in a three-dimensional ideal Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulation. The results of the experiment and the numerical simulation, together demonstrate a viable path from macro-scale MHD physics to micro-scale non-MHD physics where fast reconnection occurs.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[2];
[4];
[2]
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States); NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E); National Science Foundation (NSF); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1631737
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1599249; OSTI ID: 1764227
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-20-28589
Journal ID: ISSN 1070-664X; TRN: US2201028
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-04ER54755; AR0000565; FA9550-11-1-0184; 89233218CNA000001
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physics of Plasmas
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 27; Journal Issue: 2; Journal ID: ISSN 1070-664X
- Publisher:
- American Institute of Physics (AIP)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; Fusion energy; Magnetic reconnection; Computer simulation; Stability theory; Stark effect; Doppler effect; Whistler waves; Plasmas; X-ray bursts
Citation Formats
Seo, Byonghoon, Wongwaitayakornkul, Pakorn, Haw, Magnus A., Marshall, Ryan S., Li, Hui, and Bellan, Paul M. Determination of a macro- to micro-scale progression leading to a magnetized plasma disruption. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1063/1.5140348.
Seo, Byonghoon, Wongwaitayakornkul, Pakorn, Haw, Magnus A., Marshall, Ryan S., Li, Hui, & Bellan, Paul M. Determination of a macro- to micro-scale progression leading to a magnetized plasma disruption. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5140348
Seo, Byonghoon, Wongwaitayakornkul, Pakorn, Haw, Magnus A., Marshall, Ryan S., Li, Hui, and Bellan, Paul M. Wed .
"Determination of a macro- to micro-scale progression leading to a magnetized plasma disruption". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5140348. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1631737.
@article{osti_1631737,
title = {Determination of a macro- to micro-scale progression leading to a magnetized plasma disruption},
author = {Seo, Byonghoon and Wongwaitayakornkul, Pakorn and Haw, Magnus A. and Marshall, Ryan S. and Li, Hui and Bellan, Paul M.},
abstractNote = {We report here the observations of a plasma jet evolving through a macro- to micro-scale progression sequence. This leads to a fast magnetic reconnection that results in the jet breaking off from its originating electrode and forming a force-free state. A sausage-like pinching occurs first and squeezes an initially fat, short magnetized jet so that it becomes thin. The thin jet then becomes kink unstable. The lengthening of the jet by the kinking thins the jet even more since the kink is an incompressible instability. When the jet radius becomes comparable to the ion-skin depth, Hall and electron inertial physics become important and establish the environment for a fast magnetic reconnection. This fast reconnection occurs, disrupting the jet and establishing a force-free state. X-ray bursts and whistler waves, evidence of a magnetic reconnection, are observed when the plasma jet breaks off from the electrode. This experimentally confirmed sequence of successive thinning from pinching followed by kinking is reproduced in a three-dimensional ideal Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical simulation. The results of the experiment and the numerical simulation, together demonstrate a viable path from macro-scale MHD physics to micro-scale non-MHD physics where fast reconnection occurs.},
doi = {10.1063/1.5140348},
journal = {Physics of Plasmas},
number = 2,
volume = 27,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Wed Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 5 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Hard x-ray bursts observed in association with Rayleigh-Taylor instigated current disruption in a solar-relevant lab experiment
journal, November 2018
- Marshall, R. S.; Flynn, M. J.; Bellan, P. M.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 11
Observations of the magnetohydrodynamic dynamo effect in a spheromak plasma
journal, March 1993
- al-Karkhy, A.; Browning, P. K.; Cunningham, G.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 70, Issue 12
Experimental investigation of the compression and heating of an MHD-driven jet impacting a target cloud
journal, November 2018
- Seo, Byonghoon; Bellan, Paul M.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 11
Laboratory Measurement of Large‐Amplitude Whistler Pulses Generated by Fast Magnetic Reconnection
journal, July 2019
- Haw, Magnus A.; Seo, Byonghoon; Bellan, Paul M.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 46, Issue 13
Multielement magnetic probe using commercial chip inductors
journal, August 2004
- Romero-Talamás, C. A.; Bellan, P. M.; Hsu, S. C.
- Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 75, Issue 8
Small-scale filament eruptions as the driver of X-ray jets in solar coronal holes
journal, July 2015
- Sterling, Alphonse C.; Moore, Ronald L.; Falconer, David A.
- Nature, Vol. 523, Issue 7561
Spheromak merging and field reversed configuration formation at the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment
journal, May 2003
- Cothran, C. D.; Falk, A.; Fefferman, A.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 10, Issue 5
Nonlinear properties of the internal m = 1 kink instability in the cylindrical tokamak
journal, January 1973
- Rosenbluth, Marshall N.
- Physics of Fluids, Vol. 16, Issue 11
Sausage instabilities on top of kinking lengthening current-carrying magnetic flux tubes
journal, May 2017
- von der Linden, Jens; You, Setthivoine
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 24, Issue 5
Relaxation and magnetic reconnection in plasmas
journal, July 1986
- Taylor, J. B.
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 58, Issue 3
Fast, purely growing collisionless reconnection as an eigenfunction problem related to but not involving linear whistler waves
journal, October 2014
- Bellan, Paul M.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 10
Detection and Interpretation of Long-lived X-Ray Quasi-periodic Pulsations in the X-class Solar Flare on 2013 May 14
journal, February 2017
- Dennis, Brian R.; Tolbert, Anne K.; Inglis, Andrew
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 836, Issue 1
Slow Formation and Sustainment of Spheromaks by a Coaxial Magnetized Plasma Source
journal, July 1983
- Jarboe, T. R.; Henins, I.; Sherwood, A. R.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 51, Issue 1
Experimental Identification of the Kink Instability as a Poloidal Flux Amplification Mechanism for Coaxial Gun Spheromak Formation
journal, May 2003
- Hsu, S. C.; Bellan, P. M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 90, Issue 21
Suppression of MHD Fluctuations Leading to Improved Confinement in a Gun-Driven Spheromak
journal, March 2002
- McLean, H. S.; Woodruff, S.; Hooper, E. B.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 88, Issue 12
Observational Evidence of the Kink Instability in Solar Filament Eruptions and Sigmoids
journal, February 2005
- Rust, D. M.; LaBonte, B. J.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 622, Issue 1
A hybrid Rayleigh-Taylor-current-driven coupled instability in a magnetohydrodynamically collimated cylindrical plasma with lateral gravity
journal, March 2016
- Zhai, Xiang; Bellan, Paul M.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 23, Issue 3
Dynamic and Stagnating Plasma Flow Leading to Magnetic-Flux-Tube Collimation
journal, July 2005
- You, S.; Yun, G. S.; Bellan, P. M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 4
Magnetic reconnection from a multiscale instability cascade
journal, February 2012
- Moser, Auna L.; Bellan, Paul M.
- Nature, Vol. 482, Issue 7385
Reverse Current Model for Coronal Mass Ejection Cavity Formation
journal, July 2018
- Haw, Magnus A.; Wongwaitayakornkul, Pakorn; Li, Hui
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 862, Issue 2
On the jets, kinks, and spheromaks formed by a planar magnetized coaxial gun
journal, March 2005
- Hsu, S. C.; Bellan, P. M.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 12, Issue 3
The effect of sheared axial flow on the linear stability of the Z‐pinch
journal, February 1996
- Arber, T. D.; Howell, D. F.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 3, Issue 2
Evidence of Stabilization in the -Pinch
journal, October 2001
- Shumlak, U.; Golingo, R. P.; Nelson, B. A.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 87, Issue 20
Relaxation oscillations and toroidal-current regeneration in a helicity-driven spheromak
journal, December 1993
- Nagata, M.; Kanki, T.; Masuda, T.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 71, Issue 26
Hydromagnetic stability of a diffuse linear pinch
journal, June 1960
- Newcomb, William A.
- Annals of Physics, Vol. 10, Issue 2
Internal Kink Instability during Off-Axis Electron Cyclotron Current Drive in the DIII-D Tokamak
journal, July 2000
- Wong, K. L.; Chu, M. S.; Luce, T. C.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 85, Issue 5
Experimental Verification of the Hall Effect during Magnetic Reconnection in a Laboratory Plasma
journal, July 2005
- Ren, Yang; Yamada, Masaaki; Gerhardt, Stefan
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 95, Issue 5
Simulation of high-energy particle production through sausage and kink instabilities in pinched plasma discharges
journal, August 2006
- Haruki, Takayuki; Yousefi, Hamid Reza; Masugata, Katsumi
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 13, Issue 8
GLOBAL SAUSAGE OSCILLATION OF SOLAR FLARE LOOPS DETECTED BY THE INTERFACE REGION IMAGING SPECTROGRAPH
journal, May 2016
- Tian, Hui; Young, Peter R.; Reeves, Katharine K.
- The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 823, Issue 1
Why current-carrying magnetic flux tubes gobble up plasma and become thin as a result
journal, May 2003
- Bellan, P. M.
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 10, Issue 5
Works referencing / citing this record:
Critical Science Plan for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST)
text, January 2020
- Rast, Mark P.; González, Nazaret Bello; Rubio, Luis Bellot
- arXiv