Observation of subcritical shocks in a collisional laboratory plasma: scale dependence near the resistive length

We present a study of subcritical shocks in a highly collisional laboratory plasma with a dynamically significant magnetic field. Shocks were produced by placing cylindrical obstacles into the supermagnetosonic ( $M_{{\rm MS}} \sim 1.9$ ) outflow from an inverse wire array z-pinch at the MAGPIE puls...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of plasma physics 2023-08, Vol.89 (4), Article 915890401
Main Authors: Russell, D.R., Burdiak, G.C., Carroll-Nellenback, J.J., Halliday, J.W.D., Hare, J.D., Merlini, S., Suttle, L.G., Valenzuela-Villaseca, V., Eardley, S.J., Fullalove, J.A., Rowland, G.C., Smith, R.A., Frank, A., Hartigan, P., Velikovich, A.L., Chittenden, J.P., Lebedev, S.V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Barriers
Decoupling
Diameters
Diffusion length
Electrons
Experiments
Interferometry
Kinetic energy
Laboratories
Lasers
Magnetic fields
Magnetohydrodynamic simulation
Physics
Plasma
Plasma physics
Simulation
Thomson scattering
Wire
Zeta pinch
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Summary:We present a study of subcritical shocks in a highly collisional laboratory plasma with a dynamically significant magnetic field. Shocks were produced by placing cylindrical obstacles into the supermagnetosonic ( $M_{{\rm MS}} \sim 1.9$ ) outflow from an inverse wire array z-pinch at the MAGPIE pulsed power facility ( $n_{e} \sim 8.5 \times 10^{17}\,{\rm cm}^{-3}$ , $v \sim 45\,{\rm km}\,{\rm s}^{-1}$ ). We demonstrate the existence of subcritical shocks in this regime and find that secondary stagnation shocks form in the downstream which we infer from interferometry and optical Thomson scattering measurements are hydrodynamic in nature. The subcritical shock width is found to be approximately equal to the resistive diffusion length and we demonstrate the absence of a jump in hydrodynamic parameters. Temperature measurements by collective optical Thomson scattering showed little temperature change across the subcritical shock ( ${
ISSN:0022-3778
1469-7807
DOI:10.1017/S0022377823000740