Structure Formation and Tearing of an MeV Cylindrical Electron Beam in a Laser-Produced Plasma

Abstract

The stability of a cylindrical, solid hot electron beam propagating in a high density plasma has been studied using a two-dimensional, hybrid Darwin code. The initially solid beam evolves into a hollow, annular beam due to the Weibel instability and generates strong magnetic fields on both sides of the annular ring. The annular structure subsequently breaks up into several beamlets via a mechanism similar to a tearing instability. It is found that the magnetic fields parallel to the direction of beam propagation also grow due to the tearing process.

Theory of fast electron transport for fast ignition

“…This could proceed either directly, through the unstable wave-beam interaction (Malkin & Fisch 2002), or indirectly, through an instability-induced increased plasma resistivity (Sentoku et al 2003). In contrast to past studies, which mostly focused on electrostatic beam-aligned instabilities, recent FIS-related theoretical works have considered the whole unstable k-spectrum (Bret et al 2004, Califano et al 2006, Bret et al 2006, Cottrill et al 2008, Karmakar et al 2009, Bret, Gremillet & Bénisti 2010, Bret, Gremillet & Dieckmann 2010, paying particular attention to the quasi-magnetic filamentation modes developing normal to the beam direction (Pegoraro et al 1996, Califano et al 1998, Sentoku et al 2000, Honda & Meyer-ter-Vehn 2000, Taguchi et al 2001, Silva et al 2002, Hill et al 2005, Kato 2005, Adam et al 2006, Schaefer-Rolffs et al 2006, Mart'yanov et al 2008, Karmakar, Kumar, Shvets, Polomarov & Pukhov 2008, Khudik et al 2012. Being all the stronger when the beam and plasma densities are comparable , the collisionless instabilities are most likely to disrupt the early propagation of the beam into the "low"-density regions of the target.…”

Three-Dimensional Magnetic Structures Generated by the Development of the Filamentation (Weibel) Instability in the Relativistic Regime

“…In the fast ignition (FI) scenario, it is believed that the Weibel instability should generate ultra strong magnetic fields up to 100 MG. The generated magnetic field should therefore play a key role in the transport process and strongly influence the plasma dynamics [5,6]. Moreover, in recent years the CF (Weibel)-TS instability has been actively discussed in the astrophysical context concerning the origin of cosmological magnetic fields and different phenomena such as gamma ray bursts, supernovae, and relativistic jets [7].…”

Abelianization of QCD plasma instabilities

“…Refs. [43][44][45][46] numerically study parity-asymmetric initial conditions which do not isotropize. In particular, Honda et al [43] study the initial condition of a homogeneous beam of fast electrons in a plasma of slow electrons (and slower ions).…”