Speaker
Dr
Mark Dieckmann
Description
A large gradient of the thermal pressure in a collision-less
plasma triggers the formation of a rarefaction wave.
Rarefaction waves can accelerate ions to speeds of the order
of hundreds to thousands of km/s in laser-plasma
experiments and the collision of these fast ion beams with an
ambient plasma triggers the formation of shocks.
Forthcoming experimental campaigns will introduce a
background magnetic field into the ambient plasma that
yields a beta value of the order unity and study the
magnetized shocks. I will present results from recent PIC
simulation studies that investigated such shocks and show
how a fast magnetosonic shock forms in such a plasma,
which is trailed by a tangential discontinuity, and how a
radially expanding blast shell interacts with a uniform
background magnetic field.
Primary author
Dr
Mark Dieckmann
