Investigation of Plasmas Having Complex, Dynamic Evolving Morphology
- California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
Three different types of plasmas have been investigated using both experimental and theoretical methods. The first type of plasma is dense, highly ionized, governed by magnetohydrodynamics, and highly dynamic. This plasma is relevant to solar coronal loops, astrophysical jets, and other situations where strong magnetic forces act on the plasma. A well-diagnosed laboratory experiment creates a magnetohydrodynamically driven highly collimated plasma jet. This jet undergoes a kink instability such that it rapidly develops a corkscrew shape. The kink causes lateral acceleration of the jet, and this lateral acceleration drives a Rayleigh-Taylor instability that in turn chokes the current flowing in the jet and causes a magnetic reconnection. The magnetic reconnection causes electron and ion heating as well as emission of whistler waves. This entire sequence of events has been observed, measured in detail, and related to theoretical models. The second type of plasma is a transient rf-produced plasma used as a seed plasma for the magnetohydrodynamic experiments described above. Detailed atomic physics ionization processes have been investigated and modeled. The third type of plasma that has been studied is a dusty plasma where the dust particles are spontaneously growing ice grains. The rapid growth of the ice grains to large size and their highly ordered alignment has been investigated as well as collective motion of the ice grains, including well-defined flows on the surface of nested toroids. In addition to the experimental work described above, several related theoretical models have been developed, most notably a model showing how a complex interaction between gravity and magnetic fields on extremely weakly ionized plasma in an accretion disk provides an electric power source that can drive astrophysical jets associated with the accretion disk. Eighteen papers reporting this work have been published in a wide variety of journals.
- Research Organization:
- California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0010471
- OSTI ID:
- 1338189
- Report Number(s):
- FINAL-DOE-CALTECH-0010471; TRN: US1701430
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
PLASMA JETS
JETS
KINK INSTABILITY
WHISTLERS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
ASTROPHYSICS
ELECTRONS
ICE
ACCRETION DISKS
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY
ACCELERATION
MORPHOLOGY
MAGNETIC FIELDS
ALIGNMENT
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
DUSTS
EMISSION
GRAVITATION
HEATING
INTERACTIONS
IONIZATION
TRANSIENTS
PLASMA SEEDING
STRONGLY IONIZED GASES
SOLAR CORONA
IONS
PLASMA HEATING
WEAKLY IONIZED GASES