Disruption of Current Filaments and Isotropization of the Magnetic Field in Counterstreaming Plasmas

Ruyer, C.; Fiuza, F.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.120.245002

Title: Disruption of Current Filaments and Isotropization of the Magnetic Field in Counterstreaming Plasmas

Journal Article · Tue Jun 12 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.120.245002· OSTI ID:1457779

Ruyer, C. ^[1]; Fiuza, F. ^[2]

SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). High Energy Density Science Division; Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), Arpajon (France)
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). High Energy Density Science Division

In this paper, we study the stability of current filaments produced by the Weibel, or current filamentation, instability in weakly magnetized counterstreaming plasmas. It is shown that a resonance exists between the current-carrying ions and a longitudinal drift-kink mode that strongly deforms and eventually breaks the current filaments. Analytical estimates of the wavelength, growth rate, and saturation level of the resonant mode are derived and validated by three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Finally and furthermore, self-consistent simulations of counterstreaming plasmas indicate that this drift-kink mode is dominant in the slow down of the flows and in the isotropization of the magnetic field, playing an important role in the formation of collisionless shocks.

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Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1457779

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1441252

Journal Information:: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 120, Issue 24; ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 24 works

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Stability analysis of a periodic system of relativistic current filaments Vanthieghem, A.; Lemoine, M.; Gremillet, L. Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 25, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5033562	journal	July 2018
Characterizing filamentary magnetic structures in counter-streaming plasmas by Fourier analysis of proton images Levesque, Joseph; Kuranz, Carolyn; Handy, Timothy Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5100728	journal	October 2019
Transport of moderately relativistic electron beam in dense plasma Li, R.; Zhou, C. T.; Yu, M. Y. Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Vol. 61, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab217c	journal	June 2019
Origin and impacts of the first cosmic rays Ohira, Yutaka; Murase, Kohta Physical Review D, Vol. 100, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.100.061301	journal	September 2019
Evolution of Three-dimensional Relativistic Ion Weibel Instability: Competition with Kink Instability Takamoto, Makoto; Matsumoto, Yosuke; Kato, Tsunehiko N. The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 877, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab1911	journal	June 2019
Weibel-mediated Shocks Propagating into Inhomogeneous Electron–Positron Plasmas Tomita, Sara; Ohira, Yutaka; Yamazaki, Ryo The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 886, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab4a10	journal	November 2019
Characterizing filamentary magnetic structures in counter-streaming plasmas by Fourier analysis of proton images Levesque, Joseph; Kuranz, Carolyn; Handy, Timothy arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1910.04070	text	January 2019
Multi-scale simulations of particle acceleration in astrophysical systems Marcowith, Alexandre; Ferrand, Gilles; Grech, Mickael Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41115-020-0007-6	journal	March 2020
Multi-scale dynamics of magnetic flux tubes and inverse magnetic energy transfer Zhou, Muni; Loureiro, Nuno F.; Uzdensky, Dmitri A. arXiv https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2001.07291	text	January 2020

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70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
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