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A study of plasma expansion phenomena in laboratory generated plasma wakes: preliminary results

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

K. H. Wright Jr ,
N. H. Stone  and
U. Samir
K. H. Wright Jr
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899
N. H. Stone
Affiliation:
Space Science Laboratory, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812
U. Samir
Affiliation:
Department of Geophysics, and Planetary Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
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Abstract

The plasma expansion into the wake of a large rectangular plate immersed in a single-ion, collisionless, streaming plasma has been investigated in the laboratory. Several characteristics of the process involved in ‘plasma expansion into vacuum’ that have been predicted theoretically were observed, including the creation and motion of a rarefaction wave disturbance; the creation and motion of an expansion front; and the acceleration of ions into the wake at speeds above the ion-acoustic speed. The expansion was limited to early times; i.e. a few ion plasma periods, by the combination of plasma drift speed and vacuum chamber size. This prevented detailed comparison with self-similar theory, but results are in good agreement with numerical simulations and other laboratory experiments for the early time expansion. The conclusion is that the plasma expansion process is the dominant wake filling mechanism in the near wake of a body, whose potential is approximately the plasma space potential.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Plasma Physics , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , February 1985 , pp. 71 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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