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The Coexistence of Orthogonal Current Structures and the Development of Different-Type Weibel Instabilities in Adjacent Regions of a Plasma Transition Layer with a Hot Electron Flow

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Abstract

By means of particle-in-cell numerical simulations, we find the possibility of the formation and long-term coexistence of orthogonal current structures in adjacent layers of an inhomogeneous cold plasma penetrated by a hot electron flow. The formationof these structures is shown to occur in a wide range of parameters specifying collisionless expansion of high-energy electrons out of a dense plasma into a rarefied plasma. These structures originate due to the development of Weibel instabilities of two different types that are associated with qualitatively different anisotropic electron velocity distributions. Experiments with a laser plasma produced in the course of target ablation by means of quasi-cylindrical focusing of a high-power femtosecond-laser radiation beam are proposed in order to observe the predicted phenomenon.

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Notes

  1. At an increase in the ion mass to actual values of M > 1836m, as shown by estimates for the posed problem and numerical simulation for the physically close problem of expansion of plasma with hot electrons into an external magnetic field (Garasev et al., 2022), the nature of the current structures and the dynamics of electron processes on picosecond times do not change qualitatively, but their rate only slows down, and the deformation rate of the profile of the total plasma density that is determined by the ion-acoustic velocity of ~ (T/M)1/2 decreases.

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Funding

Modeling of the formation and rearrangement of current sheets and filaments in the cold plasma transition layer in the presence of hot electron injection (Sections 2 and 3) was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no. 18-29-21029. Numerical calculations were performed using computing resources provided by the Joint Supercomputer Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Interpretation, analytical evaluations, and qualitative analysis of the obtained results (Sections 1, 4, and 5) were supported by the “BASIS” Foundation, grant no. 20-1-1-37-2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 603155, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    M. A. Garasev, Vl. V. Kocharovsky, A. A. Nechaev & A. N. Stepanov

  2. Lobachevsky University, 603105, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    Vl. V. Kocharovsky

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, United States

    V. V. Kocharovsky

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  1. M. A. Garasev
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Correspondence to Vl. V. Kocharovsky.

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Translated by A. Ivanov

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Garasev, M.A., Kocharovsky, V.V., Nechaev, A.A. et al. The Coexistence of Orthogonal Current Structures and the Development of Different-Type Weibel Instabilities in Adjacent Regions of a Plasma Transition Layer with a Hot Electron Flow. Geomagn. Aeron. 62 (Suppl 1), S10–S24 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793222600436

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