Generation of quasi-perpendicular Collisionless Shocks by Laser-Produced Plasma to simulate the effects of super-compression of the Earth’s magnetosphere

Abstract

Giant plasma releases of so called Coronal Mass Ejections (CME, with kinetic energy up to Ek ∼ 1036 эрг) from the surface of the Sun and their potential catastrophical impact onto Earth’s magnetosphere, with the probable opportunity to compress it in 2, 3 or more times [1, 2], represent one of the most important problem in the geophysical and historical bio-evolutional investigations of the past and present of the Earth. It was supposed that the re-connection of dipole magnetic field at magnetopause could play [2] an exclusive role in its inward shift, but from the more general point of view (to perform laboratory simulation [3-6] of magnetopause dynamics), a more important and common features of CME propagation in Solar Wind plasma are the formation of collisionless Quasi-Perpendicular Shocks (Q-PS) ahead of Super-Alfvenic CME. It is provided by the almost radial (along to R) motion of CME from the Sun, while the Interplanetary Magnetic Field B0 has an angle θ ∼ 45° (relative to R) near the Earth orbit. Up to date, in spite of intensive development of laser energetics and energy of Laser-produced Plasma (LP), such Q-PS never were generated by LP [7], excluding recent experiment [8] at KI-1 facility of ILP. In the given work, a first results of our study were presented together with relevant calculations by hybrid code and the basic physics of VNIIEF-model [9] for the collisionless Magnetic Laminar Mechanism (MLM) of interaction between a spherical LP and magnetized Background Plasma (BP). A special analysis was done on the conditions and data of the formation of whistler precursor in front of revealed oblique (Q-PS) shocks as well as on the first data of dipole's field compression by BP and Shocks.