Related papers: [Plasma 2020 Decadal] The Material Properties of W…
Over the last decade, substantial efforts have been devoted to understanding the stability properties, transport phenomena, and long-term evolution of weakly-collisional, magnetized plasmas which are stratified in temperature. These studies…
We present experimental data providing evidence for the formation of transient ($\sim 20~\mu$s) plasmas that are simultaneously weakly magnetized (i.e., Hall magnetization parameter $\omega \tau > 1$) and dominated by thermal pressure…
This is a science white paper submitted to the Astro-2020 and Plasma-2020 Decadal Surveys. The paper describes the present status and emerging opportunities in Extreme Plasma Astrophysics -- a study of astrophysically-relevant plasma…
This Chapter provides a brief tutorial on some aspects of plasma physics that are fundamental to understanding the dynamics and energetics of the intracluster medium (ICM). The tutorial is split into two parts: one that focuses on the…
From the near-Earth solar wind to the intracluster medium of galaxy clusters, collisionless, high-beta, magnetized plasmas pervade our universe. Energy and momentum transport from large-scale fields and flows to small scale motions of…
This white paper submitted for 2020 Decadal Assessment of Plasma Science concerns the importance of multi-spacecraft missions to address fundamental questions concerning plasma turbulence. Plasma turbulence is ubiquitous in the universe,…
Major scientific questions and research opportunities are described on 10 unprioritized plasma astrophysics topics: (1) magnetic reconnection, (2) collisionless shocks and particle acceleration, (3) waves and turbulence, (4) magnetic…
In weakly collisional and collisionless magnetized plasmas, the pressure-strain interaction describes the rate of conversion between bulk flow and thermal energy density. In this study, we derive an analytical expression for the…
A theoretical analysis for astrophysics-oriented laser-matter interaction experiments in the presence of a strong ambient magnetic field is presented. It is shown that the plasma collision in the ambient magnetic field implies significant…
Transport properties, such as viscosity and thermal conduction, of the hot intergalactic plasma in clusters of galaxies, are largely unknown. While for laboratory plasmas these characteristics are derived from the gas density and…
The electromagnetic instabilities excited by the temperature anisotropy have been always one of the interesting issues in real high-density physical systems, where the relativistic and quantum effects due to spin can be important. This…
We study weak gravitational lensing around a compact object with arbitrary quadrupole moment in the presence of plasma. The studied compact objects are considered to be spherically symmetric. The additional parameter $\epsilon$ regulating…
We discuss dissipative processes in strongly gyrotropic, nearly collisionless plasma in clusters of galaxies (ICM). First, we point out that Braginsky theory, which assumes that collisions are more frequent that the system's dynamical time…
This whitepaper was submitted to the 2019-2020 APS-DPP-CPP (American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics Community Planning Process) on plasma discovery science. It highlights the need for diverse computational approaches including…
Astrophysical plasmas can have parameters vastly different from the more studied laboratory and space plasmas. In particular, the magnetic fields can be the dominant component of the plasma, with energy-density exceeding the particle…
We investigate the linear tearing instability in weakly collisional plasmas using a non-ideal gyrotropic-MHD framework, uncovering a previously unknown scaling relation for the instability growth rate in high-$\beta$ environments. Even…
The physical foundations of the dissipation of energy and the associated heating in weakly collisional plasmas are poorly understood. Here, we compare and contrast several measures that have been used to characterize energy dissipation and…
Galaxy clusters are the largest and most massive bound objects resulting from cosmic hierarchical structure formation. Baryons account for somewhat more than 10% of that mass, with roughly 90% of the baryonic matter distributed throughout…
In low-collisionality plasmas, anisotropic heat conduction due to a magnetic field leads to buoyancy instabilities for any nonzero temperature gradient. We study analogous instabilities in degenerate {\it collisional} plasmas, i.e., when…
Dark matter has been theorized to be charged under its own "dark electromagnetism" (dark-EM). Under this hypothesis, dark matter can behave like a cold collisionless plasma of self-interacting dark matter particles, and exhibit plasma-like…