Numerical modeling of laser-driven experiments aiming to demonstrate magnetic field amplification via turbulent dynamo
Abstract
The universe is permeated by magnetic fields, with strengths ranging from a femtogauss in the voids between the filaments of galaxy clusters to several teragauss in black holes and neutron stars. The standard model behind cosmological magnetic fields is the nonlinear amplification of seed fields via turbulent dynamo to the values observed. We have conceived experiments that aim to demonstrate and study the turbulent dynamo mechanism in the laboratory. Here we describe the design of these experiments through simulation campaigns using FLASH, a highly capable radiation magnetohydrodynamics code that we have developed, and large-scale three-dimensional simulations on the Mira supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory. The simulation results indicate that the experimental platform may be capable of reaching a turbulent plasma state and study dynamo amplification. We validate and compare our numerical results with a small subset of experimental data using synthetic diagnostics.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1702.03015,
title = {Numerical modeling of laser-driven experiments aiming to demonstrate magnetic field amplification via turbulent dynamo},
author = {P. Tzeferacos and A. Rigby and A. Bott and A. R. Bell and R. Bingham and A. Casner and F. Cattaneo and E. M. Churazov and J. Emig and N. Flocke and F. Fiuza and C. B. Forest and J. Foster and C. Graziani and J. Katz and M. Koenig and C. -K. Li and J. Meinecke and R. Petrasso and H. -S. Park and B. A. Remington and J. S. Ross and D. Ryu and D. Ryutov and K. Weide and T. G. White and B. Reville and F. Miniati and A. A. Schekochihin and D. H. Froula and G. Gregori and D. Q. Lamb},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.03015},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication on Physics of Plasmas, 15 pages 12 figures