Filamentation instability of counterstreaming laser-driven plasmas

Filamentation due to the growth of a Weibel-type instability was observed in the interaction of a pair of counterstreaming, ablatively driven plasma flows, in a supersonic, collisionless regime relevant to astrophysical collisionless shocks. The flows were created by irradiating a pair of opposing p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2013-11, Vol.111 (22), p.225002-225002
Main Authors: Fox, W, Fiksel, G, Bhattacharjee, A, Chang, P-Y, Germaschewski, K, Hu, S X, Nilson, P M
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Filamentation due to the growth of a Weibel-type instability was observed in the interaction of a pair of counterstreaming, ablatively driven plasma flows, in a supersonic, collisionless regime relevant to astrophysical collisionless shocks. The flows were created by irradiating a pair of opposing plastic (CH) foils with 1.8 kJ, 2-ns laser pulses on the OMEGA EP Laser System. Ultrafast laser-driven proton radiography was used to image the Weibel-generated electromagnetic fields. The experimental observations are in good agreement with the analytical theory of the Weibel instability and with particle-in-cell simulations.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.225002