Investigation of the Dynamics of Interacting Magnetized Plasmas Through Experiments and Extended MHD Modeling

该奖项支持研究磁化等离子体云--被磁场渗透的电子和离子的电离气体--如何相互作用。 具有不同粒子密度的相互作用等离子体存在于各种各样的自然系统中，包括传播到星系际介质中的天体物理喷流和在太阳风背景中向地球传播的太阳日冕物质抛射。 此外，这种相互作用的等离子体可以在工程核聚变系统中找到，例如在托卡马克等离子体的燃料供给中以及在激光驱动的惯性聚变系统中产生的壳材料的射流中。 在这个项目中，实验室规模的相互作用等离子体将在新墨西哥州大学的基本等离子体科学设备进行详细研究。 这些实验将通过大规模计算机建模来补充。 该项目由物理学系和刺激竞争性研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。虽然对密集磁化等离子体传播到背景真空中的研究有很长的历史，但对这种结构传播到背景等离子体中的研究只是最近才开始的。 关于这些磁化等离子体相互作用，仍然存在一些重要的问题，例如热量、粒子和磁通量或磁螺旋度如何被传输到背景区域的细节，以及这些系统如何自组织。 本工作的目标是阐明详细的等离子体和磁场动力学的高密度等离子体射流和气泡传播到低密度背景等离子体。 这将通过控制厘米和微秒级的实验室实验和紧密耦合的磁流体动力学模型来实现。 该项目将补充其他正在进行的实验，利用激光或脉冲功率驱动射流对亚毫米和亚微秒尺度的等离子体，其中测量的空间和时间保真度更有限。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

This award supports a study of how clouds of magnetized plasma - ionized gas of electrons and ions permeated by magnetic fields - interact with each other. Interacting plasmas with different particle densities occur in a wide variety of natural systems, including astrophysical jets propagating into the intergalactic medium and coronal mass ejections from the sun propagating toward earth in the background solar wind. Additionally, such interacting plasmas can be found in engineered nuclear fusion systems, such as in the fueling of tokamak plasmas and in jets of shell material generated in laser-driven inertial fusion systems. In this project, laboratory-scale interacting plasmas will be studied in detail in a basic plasma science device at the University of New Mexico. The experiments will be complemented by large-scale computer modeling. The project is jointly funded by the Division of Physics and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).Although there is a long history of studies of dense magnetized plasmas propagating into background vacuum, studies of propagation of such structures into background plasma began only relatively recently. A number of important questions remain about these magnetized plasma interactions, such as the details of how heat, particles, and magnetic flux or magnetic helicity are transported into background regions, and how such systems may self-organize. The goal of this work is to elucidate the detailed plasma and magnetic field dynamics of higher density plasma jets and bubbles propagating into lower density background plasma. This will be accomplished through controlled cm- and microsecond-scale laboratory experiments and closely coupled magnetohydrodynamic modeling. The project will complement other ongoing experiments that utilize laser- or pulsed power-driven jets on submillimeter- and sub microsecond-scale plasmas, where the spatial and temporal fidelity of measurements are more limited.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.