ALBERT

Beschreibung: We present results from experiments on the head-on merging of two supersonic plasma jets in an initially collisionless regime for the counter-streaming ions. The plasma jets are of either an argon/impurity or hydrogen/impurity mixture and are produced by pulsed-power-driven railguns. Based on time- and space-resolved fast-imaging, multi-chord interferometry, and survey-spectroscopy measurements of the overlapping region between the merging jets, we observe that the jets initially interpenetrate, consistent with calculated inter-jet ion collision lengths, which are long. As the jets interpenetrate, a rising mean-charge state causes a rapid decrease in the inter-jet ion collision length. Finally, the interaction becomes collisional and the jets stagnate, eventually producing structures consistent with collisional shocks. These experimental observations can aid in the validation of plasma collisionality and ionization models for plasmas with complex equations of state.

Beschreibung: We discuss and compare different approaches to calculating the dynamics of anisotropic flow structure formation in quasi two-dimensional turbulence based on potential vorticity (PV) transport in real space. The general structure of the PV flux in the relaxation processes is deduced non-perturbatively . The transport coefficients of the PV flux are then systematically calculated using perturbation theory. We develop two non-perturbative relaxation models: the first is a mean field theory for the dynamics of minimum enstrophy relaxation based on the requirement that the mean flux of PV dissipates total potential enstrophy but conserves total fluid kinetic energy. The results show that the structure of PV flux has the form of a sum of a positive definite hyper-viscous and a negative or positive viscous flux of PV. Turbulence spreading is shown to be related to PV mixing via the link of turbulence energy flux to PV flux. In the relaxed state, the ratio of the PV gradient to zonal flow velocity is homogenized. This homogenized quantity sets a constraint on the amplitudes of PV and zonal flow in the relaxed state. The second relaxation model is derived from symmetry principles alone. The form of PV flux contains a nonlinear convective term in addition to viscous and hyper-viscous terms. For both cases, the transport coefficients are calculated using perturbation theory. For a broad turbulence spectrum, a modulational calculation of the PV flux gives both a negative viscosity and a positive hyper-viscosity. For a narrow turbulence spectrum, the result of a parametric instability analysis shows that PV transport is also convective. In both relaxation and perturbative analyses, it is shown that turbulent PV transport is sensitive to flow structure, and the transport coefficients are nonlinear functions of flow shear.

Beschreibung: The effect of mean shear flows on zonal flow formation is considered in the contexts of plasma drift wave turbulence and quasi-geostrophic turbulence models. The generation of zonal flows by modulational instability in the presence of large-scale mean shear flows is studied using the method of characteristics as applied to the wave kinetic equation. It is shown that mean shear flows reduce the modulational instability growth rate by shortening the coherency time of the wave spectrum with the zonal shear. The scalings of zonal flow growth rate and turbulent vorticity flux with mean shear are determined in the strong shear limit.

Beschreibung: Polar-direct-drive experiments conducted at the National Ignition Facility [E. I. Moses, Fusion Sci. Technol. 54 , 361 (2008)] performed at laser irradiance between 1   and   2 × 10 15   W / cm 2 exhibit increased hard x-ray emission, decreased neutron yield, and reduced areal density as the irradiance is increased. Experimental x-ray images at the higher irradiances show x-ray emission at the equator, as well as degraded symmetry, that is not predicted in hydrodynamic simulations using flux-limited energy transport, but that appear when non-local electron transport together with a model to account for cross beam energy transfer (CBET) is utilized. The reduction in laser power for equatorial beams required in the simulations to reproduce the effects of CBET on the observed symmetry also reproduces the yield degradation consistent with experimental data.