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Register a new userModification of the formation of high-Mach number electrostatic shock-like structures by the ion acoustic instability
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The formation of unmagnetized electrostatic shock-like structures with a high Mach number is examined with one- and two-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. The structures are generated through the collision of two identical plasma clouds, which consist of equally hot electrons and ions with a mass ratio of 250. The Mach number of the collision speed with respect to the initial ion acoustic speed of the plasma is set to 4.6. This high Mach number delays the formation of such structures by tens of inverse ion plasma frequencies. A pair of stable shock-like structures is observed after this time in the 1D simulation, which gradually evolve into electrostatic shocks. The ion acoustic instability, which can develop in the 2D simulation but not in the 1D one, competes with the nonlinear process that gives rise to these structures. The oblique ion acoustic waves fragment their electric field. The transition layer, across which the bulk of the ions change their speed, widens and their speed change is reduced. Double layer-shock hybrid structures develop.
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We investigate ion-scale kinetic plasma instabilities at the collisionless shock using linear theory and nonlinear Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations. We focus on the Alfven-ion-cyclotron (AIC), mirror, and Weibel instabilities, which are all driven unstable by the effective temperature anisotropy induced by the shock-reflected ions within the transition layer of a strictly perpendicular shock. We conduct linear dispersion analysis with a homogeneous plasma model to mimic the shock transition layer by adopting a ring distribution with finite thermal spread to represent the velocity distribution of the reflected ions. We find that, for wave propagation parallel to the ambient magnetic field, the AIC instability at lower Alfven Mach numbers tends to transition to the Weibel instability at higher Alfven Mach numbers. The instability property is, however, also strongly affected by the sound Mach number. We conclude that the instability at a strong shock with Alfven and sound Mach numbers both in excess of $sim 20{rm -}40$ may be considered as Weibel-like in the sense that the reflected ions behave essentially unmagnetized. Two-dimensional PIC simulations confirm the linear theory and find that, with typical parameters of young supernova remnant shocks, the ring distribution model produces magnetic fluctuations of the order of the background magnetic field, which is smaller than those observed in previous PIC simulations for Weibel-dominated shocks. This indicates that the assumption of the gyrotropic reflected ion distribution may not be adequate to quantitatively predict nonlinear behaviors of the dynamics in high Mach number shocks.
The existence and properties of low Mach-number ($M gtrsim 1$) electrostatic collisionless shocks are investigated with a semi-analytical solution for the shock structure. We show that the properties of the shock obtained in the semi-analytical model can be well reproduced in fully kinetic Eulerian Vlasov-Poisson simulations, where the shock is generated by the decay of an initial density discontinuity. Using this semi-analytical model, we study the effect of electron-to-ion temperature ratio and presence of impurities on both the maximum shock potential and Mach number. We find that even a small amount of impurities can influence the shock properties significantly, including the reflected light ion fraction, which can change several orders of magnitude. Electrostatic shocks in heavy ion plasmas reflect most of the hydrogen impurity ions.
The kinetic theory of collisionless electrostatic shocks resulting from the collision of plasma slabs with different temperatures and densities is presented. The theoretical results are confirmed by self-consistent particle-in-cell simulations, revealing the formation and stable propagation of electrostatic shocks with very high Mach numbers ($M gg 10$), well above the predictions of the classical theories for electrostatic shocks.
Shock parameters at Earths bow shock in rare instances can approach the Mach numbers predicted at supernova remnants. We present our analysis of a high Alfven Mach number ($M_A= 27$) shock utilizing multipoint measurements from the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) spacecraft during a crossing of Earths quasi-perpendicular bow shock. We find that the shock dynamics are mostly driven by reflected ions, perturbations that they generate, and nonlinear amplification of the perturbations. Our analyses show that reflected ions create modest magnetic enhancements upstream of the shock which evolve in a nonlinear manner as they traverse the shock foot. They can transform into proto-shocks that propagate at small angles to the magnetic field and towards the bow shock. The nonstationary bow shock shows signatures of both reformation and surface ripples. Our observations indicate that although shock reformation occurs, the main shock layer never disappears. These observations are at high plasma $beta$, a parameter regime which has not been well explored by numerical models.
A new approach to the development of extraction systems capable of forming ion beams with previously inaccessible intensity is proposed. The use of inhomogeneous accelerating field allows to improve the ion beam formation efficiency significantly. The increase of electric field magnitude is achieved by changing the shape of the electrodes only, without increasing the accelerating voltage and decreasing the interelectrode distance. The comparison is made between a new extraction system and a flat traditional one, which is the most common. The use of a new electrode geometry allows to increase the lifetime of the electrodes in sources of intense beams operating in a continuous wave mode. For electron cyclotron resonance ion sources, results demonstrate the possibility to form high-quality ion beams with a current density of more than $1:A/cm^2$.
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