Filamentation instability of counterstreaming laser-driven plasmas

W. Fox, G. Fiksel, A. Bhattacharjee, P. Y. Chang, K. Germaschewski, S. X. Hu, P. M. Nilson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

154 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number225002
JournalPhysical review letters
Volume111
Issue number22
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 27 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Physics and Astronomy(all)

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