Related papers: Electrostatic and electromagnetic instabilities as…
The collision of two expanding plasma clouds is investigated, emphasizing instabilities and electron energization in the plasma mixing layer. This work is directly relevant to laboratory experiments with explosively-created laser or z-pinch…
The nonlinear evolution of unstable C-type shocks in weakly ionized plasmas is studied by means of time-dependent magnetohydrodynamical simulations. This study is limited to shocks in magnetically dominated plasmas (in which the Alfven…
Collisionless shocks are common in astrophysical systems and stand as sites of particle acceleration. While particles at perpendicular shocks may not return to the upstream region, at oblique shocks a fraction of energetic electrons manage…
The formation of collisionless shock fronts is an ubiquitous phenomenon in space plasma environments. In the solar wind shocks might accompany coronal mass ejections, while even more violent events, such as supernovae, produce shock fronts…
The Weibel instability from counterstreaming plasma flows is a basic process highly relevant for collisionless shock formation in astrophysics. In this Letter we investigate, via two- and three- dimensional simulations, suitable…
The expansion of a radial blast shell into an ambient plasma is modeled with a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. The unmagnetized plasma consists of electrons and protons. The formation and evolution of an electrostatic shock is observed,…
The localized deposition of the energy of a laser pulse, as it ablates a solid target, introduces high thermal pressure gradients in the plasma. The thermal expansion of this laser-heated plasma into the ambient medium (ionized residual…
Thermal electrons cannot directly participate in the process of diffusive acceleration at electron-ion shocks because their Larmor radii are smaller than the shock transition width: this is the well-known electron injection problem of…
The speed at which ions enter a sheath is a fundamental property of a plasma that also provides a useful boundary condition in modeling. A recent theory proposed that this can be significantly influenced by an instability-enhanced friction…
We outline transient quasi-magnetostatic phenomena associated with Weibel-type instabilities, mainly, the formation and decay of the current sheets and filaments. We consider a collisionless anisotropic plasma cloud with hot electrons…
Shock acceleration is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas. Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., Buneman, Weibel and other two-stream instabilities) created in collisionless shocks are responsible for particle…
We present results from three-dimensional particle simulations of collisionless shocks with relativistic counter-streaming ion-electron plasmas. Particles are followed over many skin depths downstream of the shock. Open boundaries allow the…
The formation of non-relativistic collisionless shocks in laboratory with ultrahigh intensity lasers is studied via \emph{ab initio} multi-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The microphysics behind shock formation and dissipation,…
A new quasi-neutral model describing the Weibel instability of a high-current relativistic beam propagating through a resistive plasma is developed. It treats beam electrons as kinetic particles, and ambient plasma as a non-relativistic…
Perpendicular collisionless shocks propagating into partially ionized plasmas are investigated by two-dimensional hybrid particle simulations. It is shown that some neutral particles leak into the upstream region from the downstream region,…
Magnetized collisionless shocks drive particle acceleration broadly in space and astrophysics. We perform the first large-scale particle-in-cell simulations with realistic laboratory parameters (density, temperature, and velocity) to…
Weibel-type instability can self-generate and amplify magnetic fields in both space and laboratory plasmas with temperature anisotropy. The electron Weibel instability has generally proven more challenging to measure than its ion…
Intense laser-plasma interactions are an essential tool for the laboratory study of ion acceleration at a collisionless shock. With two-dimensional particle-in-cell calculations of a multicomponent plasma we observe two electrostatic…
The instability of a monoenergetic electron beam in a collisional one-dimensional plasma bounded between grounded walls is considered both analytically and numerically. Collisions between electrons and neutrals are accounted for the plasma…
Motivated by the particle acceleration problem in pulsars, we numerically investigate electrostatic instability of electron-positron pairs injected in an external electric field. The electric field is expected to be so strong that we cannot…