Speaker
Troy Carter
Description
See the full Abstract at http://ocs.ciemat.es/EPS2018ABS/pdf/I4.405.pdf
Overview of the Basic Plasma Science Facility: the physics of waves
relevant to space, astrophysical and fusion plasmas
T.A. Carter, S. Dorfman, W. Gekelman, G. Morales, S. Tripathi, B. Van Compernolle, S. Vincena
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA
The Basic Plasma Science Facility (BaPSF) at UCLA is a US national user facility for studies
of fundamental processes in magnetized plasmas. The centerpiece of the facility is the Large
Plasma Device (LAPD), a 20m long, magnetized linear plasma device [1]. This LAPD has
been utilized to study a number of fundamental processes, including: collisionless shocks [2],
dispersion and damping of kinetic and inertial Alfvén waves [3], flux ropes and magnetic recon-
nection [4], three-wave interactions and parametric instabilities of Alfvén waves [5], turbulence
and transport [6] and interactions of energetic ions and electrons with plasma waves [7]. A brief
overview of research using the facility will be given, followed by a more detailed discussion
of studies of the nonlinear physics of Alfvén waves [8]. Recent experiments have resulted in
the first laboratory observation of the parametric instability of shear Alfvén waves. Shear waves
with sufficiently high ω/Ωc,i (> 0.6) and above a threshold wave amplitude are observed to de-
cay into co-propagating daughter waves; one a shear Alfvén wave and the other a low-frequency
quasimode. The observed process is similar to the modulational decay instability.
References
[1] W. Gekelman, et al., Review of Scientific Instruments 87, 025105 (2016).
[2] A.S. Bondarenko, et al., Nature Physics 13, 573 (2017).
[3] C.A. Kletzing, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 095001 (2010).
[4] W. Gekelman, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 235101 (2016).
[5] G. Howes, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 255001 (2012).
[6] D.A. Schaffner, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 135002 (2012).
[7] B. Van Compernolle, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 245002 (2015).
[8] S. Dorfman and T.A. Carter, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 195002 (2016).
