When matter accretes onto a young star, a shell of dense material can form around the impact, reducing its x-ray emission.

This manuscript is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits distribution and reproduction for non-commercial purposes, provided the author and source are cited. General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. AbstractThe collimation of astrophysically-relevant plasma ejecta in the form of narrow jets via a poloidal magnetic field is studied experimentally by irradiating a target situated in a 20 T axial magnetic field with a 40 J, 0.6 ns, 0.7 mm diameter, high-power laser. The dynamics of the plasma shaping by the magnetic field are studied over 70 ns and up to 20 mm from the source by diagnosing the electron density, temperature and optical self-emission. These show that the initial expansion of the plasma is highly magnetized, which leads to the formation of a cavity structure when the kinetic plasma pressure compresses the magnetic field resulting in an oblique shock [A. Ciardi et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 025002 (2013)]. The resulting poloidal magnetic nozzle generates a standing conical shock that collimates the plasma into a narrow jet [B. Albertazzi et al., Science 346, 325 (2014).]. At distances far from the target, the jet is only marginally magnetized and maintains a high aspect ratio due to its high Mach-number (M ∼ 20) and not due to external magnetic pressure. The formation of the jet is evaluated over a range of laser intensities (10 12 -10 13 W/cm 2 ), target materials and orientations of the magnetic field. Plasma cavity formation is observed in all cases and the viability of long-range jet formation is found to be dependent on the orientation of the magnetic field.

A developing application of laser-driven currents is the generation of magnetic fields of picosecond–nanosecond duration with magnitudes exceeding $B=10~\text{T}$ . Single-loop and helical coil targets can direct laser-driven discharge currents along wires to generate spatially uniform, quasi-static magnetic fields on the millimetre scale. Here, we present proton deflectometry across two axes of a single-loop coil ranging from 1 to 2 mm in diameter. Comparison with proton tracking simulations shows that measured magnetic fields are the result of kiloampere currents in the coil and electric charges distributed around the coil target. Using this dual-axis platform for proton deflectometry, robust measurements can be made of the evolution of magnetic fields in a capacitor coil target.