Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous in the Universe as a consequence of supersonic plasma flows sweeping through interstellar and intergalactic media. These shocks are the cause of many observed astrophysical phenomena, but details of shock structure and behavior remain controversial because of the lack of ways to study them experimentally. Laboratory experiments reported here, with astrophysically relevant plasma parameters, demonstrate for the first time the formation of a quasiperpendicular magnetized collisionless shock. In the upstream it is fringed by a filamented turbulent region, a rudiment for a secondary Weibel-driven shock. This turbulent structure is found responsible for electron acceleration to energies exceeding the average energy by two orders of magnitude.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.055002 | DOI Listing |
Space Sci Rev
December 2024
Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Schmiedlstraße 6, Graz, 8042 Austria.
Plasma flows with enhanced dynamic pressure, known as magnetosheath jets, are often found downstream of collisionless shocks. As they propagate through the magnetosheath, they interact with the surrounding plasma, shaping its properties, and potentially becoming geoeffective upon reaching the magnetopause. In recent years (since 2016), new research has produced vital results that have significantly enhanced our understanding on many aspects of jets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev E
November 2024
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous in space and astrophysical plasmas, and they are essential dynamical features of these systems. Lacking Coulomb collisions, these shocks are mediated by the anomalous dissipation provided by nonlinear plasma instabilities. By numerically resolving the structure of a steady-state, ion gyroviscous shock, we show that ion gyroviscosity, alone, can produce weak (M≲1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev Lett
November 2024
Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Box 537, 75121, Uppsala, Sweden and Swedish Defence Research Agency, 16490, Stockholm, Sweden.
We use multispacecraft Magnetospheric Multiscale observations to investigate electric fields and ion reflection at a nonstationary collisionless perpendicular plasma shock. We identify subproton scale (5-10 electron inertial lengths) large-amplitude normal electric fields, balanced by the Hall term (J×B/ne), as a transient feature of the shock ramp related to nonstationarity (rippling). The associated electrostatic potential, comparable to the energy of the incident solar wind protons, decelerates incident ions and reflects a significant fraction of protons, resulting in more efficient shock-drift acceleration than a stationary planar shock.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev Lett
November 2024
Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.
An experimental investigation of collisionless shock ion acceleration is presented using a multicomponent plasma and a high-intensity picosecond duration laser pulse. Protons are the only accelerated ions when a near-critical-density plasma is driven by a laser with a modest normalized vector potential. The results of particle-in-cell simulations imply that collisionless shock may accelerate protons alone selectively, which can be an important tool for understanding the physics of inaccessible collisionless shocks in space and astrophysical plasma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Rev E
September 2024
Center for Energy Research, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
We present an experimental investigation of the formation stage of a collisionless shock when the flow velocity is aligned with an ambient magnetic field utilizing laser-driven, super-Alfvénic plasma flows. As the flows interact, electromagnetic streaming instabilities develop. Proton deflectometry is used to visualize these electromagnetic fluctuations indicating the development of the ion-Weibel instability and the nonresonant instability.
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