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Preliminary characterization of a laser-generated plasma sheet

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

P.A. Keiter
G. Malamud
M. Trantham
J. Fein
J. Davis
S.R. Klein
R.P. Drake

Abstract

We present the results from recent experiments to create a flowing plasma sheet. Two groups of three laser beams with nominally 1.5 kJ of energy per group were focused to separate pointing locations, driving a shock into a wedge target. As the shock breaks out of the wedge, the plasma is focused on center, creating a sheet of plasma. Measurements at 60 ns indicate the plasma sheet has propagated 2825 microns with an average velocity of 49 microns/ns. These experiments follow previous experiments [Krauland et al. 2013], which are aimed at studying similar physics as that found in the hot spot region of cataclysmic variables. Krauland et al. created a flowing plasma, which represents the flowing plasma from the secondary star. This flow interacted with a stationary object, which represented the disk around the white dwarf. A reverse shock is a shock formed when a freely expanding plasma encounters an obstacle. Reverse shocks can be generated by a blast wave propagating through a medium. They can also be found in binary star systems where the flowing gas from a companion star interacts with the accretion disk of the primary star. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.

Date Published

Journal

High Energy Density Physics

Volume

17

Number of Pages

208-212,

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84945435338&doi=10.1016%2fj.hedp.2014.12.001&partnerID=40&md5=33abea0b441f972077f1483349fa40e8

DOI

10.1016/j.hedp.2014.12.001

Group (Lab)

J.C. Seamus Davis Group

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