Plasma Physics
This study explores nanoparticle-assisted electron injection as a method for controlling beam charge in laser wakefield acceleration through particle-in-cell simulations. We systematically investigate how the material (Li through Au) and…
We derive and implement a suitable boundary condition for the kinetic description of the electrons inside a plasma, which takes into account microphysical processes inside the wall. It is based on the surface scattering kernel, which…
We present preliminary performance results of gPLUTO, the new GPU-optimized implementation of the PLUTO code for computational plasma astrophysics. Like its predecessor, gPLUTO employs a finite-volume formulation to numerically solve the…
The formation of ion-Weibel-mediated collisionless shocks (IW-CSs) in ultraintense-laser-produced counter-streaming plasmas is investigated using particle-in-cell simulations. Analysis of the underlying microphysics reveals that a…
Broadband lasers have become a key strategy for mitigating laser plasma instabilities in inertial confinement fusion, yet their impact on collisional inverse bremsstrahlung (IB) heating remains unclear. Using one-dimensional collisional…
Confining energetic ions such as alpha particles is a prime concern in the design of stellarators. However, directly measuring alpha confinement through numerical simulation of guiding-center trajectories has been considered to be too…
In this Letter, through the comparison between experiment and numerical simulation, we reveal the dynamic mechanism underlying the abnormal polarity effect in SF6 short-gap DC breakdown, as well as a novel criterion for predicting negative…
Recently, using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, it has been demonstrated that in laser based proton acceleration with micro-structured targets, a single rectangular groove on the target front offers significant proton cut-off…
Using the averaged magnetic drift model and a first-order finite Larmor radius (FLR) expansion, the eigenvalue equation for the ion temperature gradient (ITG) mode in tokamak plasmas is reduced to a Schr\"odinger-type differential equation.…
The bremsstrahlung x-ray emission induced by the impact of plasma electrons de-confined on the chamber wall of the ASTERICS electron cyclotron resonance ion source is investigated through a suite of two simulation codes. The electron high…
We present an application of the Portable Diagnostic Package (PDP) on the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM), which integrates an optical emission spectroscopy (OES) system and an active Thomson scattering (TS) system. Due to the…
Solid nanoparticles which range in size from 1 to 500 nm can spontaneously grow from reactive gaseous precursors in nonthermal plasmas. This dissertation studies the particle size, and growth time with and without a background magnetic…
The effect of fusion-born alpha particles on the helical core (HC), a long-lived ideal saturation state of the $m/n=1/1$ kink/quasi-interchange mode, is studied in the ITER-scale hybrid scenario where a core plasma has a low magnetic shear…
Short-pulse intense lasers have the potential to model extreme astrophysical environments in laboratories. Although there are diagnostics for energetic electrons and ions resulting from laser-plasma interactions, the diagnostics to measure…
The performance of relativistic particle pushers has long been a topic of interest in the field of computational plasma physics, particularly from the point of view of the particle-in-cell approach. Previous works undertaken to compare such…
Predictive modeling of stellarator plasmas is crucial for advancing nuclear fusion energy, yet it faces unique computational difficulties. One of the main challenges is accurately simulating the dynamics of specific particle species that…
The interplay between kinetic and macroscopic scales during magnetic reconnection is investigated using particle-in-cell simulations of magnetic island coalescence in the strongly-magnetized, relativistic pair plasma regime. For large…
We investigate ablation experiments performed by laser-plasma-filament guided electrical discharges at high-voltages of up to 145 kV. The guiding was accomplished via fs-laser-generated plasma filaments across a gap of 201 mm of air onto…
This paper investigates the impact of edge turbulence spreading on broadening the heat flux width in Ohmic-plasma approaching the density limit of the J-TEXT tokamak. At the plasma edge, the EXB shear flow collapses while turbulence…
We combine simulations with new analyses that overcome previous pitfalls to explicate how nonhelical mean-field dynamos grow and saturate in unstratified, magnetorotationally driven turbulence. Shear of the mean radial magnetic field…