Speaker
Description
Collisionless shocks are ubiquitous objects in the universe. Many of these shocks are magnetized due to preexisting magnetic fields in the upstream, which is the case for the Earth’s bowshock in heliophysics and supernova remnants. Despite decades of observations and numerical simulations, there remains no clear understanding on how energy is partitioned between electrons and ions across a shock. Some of the challenges of satellite and telescope measurements are the lack of controlled conditions over which collisionless shocks evolve. Moreover, spacecraft measurements are challenging to interpret in their global dynamics whereas remote observations cannot resolve the microphysics of the shock. Laboratory experiments can aid in bridging the gap between these two well-established methods.
We present novel platforms to study quasi-perpendicular magnetized collisionless shocks driven at the Omega laser facility at the University of Rochester. A plasma plume is launched by irradiating plastic (CH) targets with high-energy laser beams, creating a shock in a background hydrogen plasma premagnetized using inductive coils (B~7 T to 20 T). The magnetic field structure is probed using proton radiography and the plasma properties (namely, velocity, temperature and density) are probed by optical Thomson Scattering. We will describe the formation and evolution of these magnetized collisionless shocks, and the development of future experiments to probe anisotropic particle heating on laboratory scales
