This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The current filamentation instability (CFI, akin to the Weibel instability) may play an important role in astrophysical phenomena, such as gamma ray burst (GRBs) and magnetic field generation, as well as in inertial confinement fusion (ICF), where fluxes of hot electron have to propagate through dense plasmas. Understanding and possibly controlling this instability is therefore crucial. CFI and the Weibel instability are also fundamental plasma instabilities. Conducting laboratory experiments relevant to astrophysics is critical to validate theories.
The CFI has never been unambiguously observed in experiments. The project will study in detail the occurrence of the CFI in very controlled experiments by using a well-diagnosed and controlled electron beam and plasma source. The appearance of the instability as a function of the beam and plasma parameters will be determined. Preliminary simulations predict that the CFI will be unambiguously observed. In addition, the radiation associated with the instability will be assessed as a possible diagnostic for its appearance.
The experiments will be done in collaboration with the Accelerator Test Facility at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (ATF-BNL). Also numerical simulations in collaboration with Prof. L. Silva and his group from the IST in Portugal will extensively study the CFI to better understand it, and to predict and verify the experimental results. They are part of the UCLA/IST/USC consortium that develops the codes OSIRIS and QuickPIC, and have implemented a package to calculate the radiation emitted by the beam particles along their intricate trajectories in the plasma. Simulation support will also be provided for another CFI experiment at the CUOS, University of Michigan, specifically oriented toward ICF by using laser produced electron beams and led by Dr. A. Maksimchuk.
The program supports one graduate student at USC and will include graduate students from the University of Michigan, as well as from the IST in Portugal.
This proposal was submitted to the NSF-DoE Partnership in Plasma Science and Engineering joint solicitation 08-589. This award is being funded by the Plasma Physics Program in the Division of Physics.
