Collisional Magnetized Plasma Research Articles

Study of Terahertz Radiation Generation by Two Laser Beams in an Axial Magnetized Rippled Density Plasma

This paper presents a scheme to achieve terahertz radiation by the beating of top-hat lasers in a rippled density collisional magnetized plasma. The nonlinear current at terahertz frequency arises on account of nonlinear ponderomotive force as a result of beating of the two lasers. A uniform static magnetic field which is considered parallel to the direction of lasers leads to, depending on the phase-matching conditions, propagation of right-hand circularly polarized (RCP) or left-hand circularly polarized (LCP) waves in plasma. It is found that, terahertz amplitude of RCP wave for high values of beating frequency is slightly larger than LCP wave. The contribution of magnetic field, laser index and collision frequency are discussed for the efficient terahertz radiation generation. With the optimization of these parameters, the efficiency of order of 25 percent can be achieved in the present scheme.

On the helium fingers in the intracluster medium

In this paper, we investigate the convection phenomenon in the intracluster medium (the weakly collisional magnetized inhomogeneous plasma permeating galaxy clusters) where the concentration gradient of the helium ions cannot be ignored. To this end, we build upon the general machinery employed to study the salt finger instability found in the oceans. The salt finger instability is a form of double diffusive convection where the diffusions of two physical quantities – heat and salt concentrations – occur with different diffusion rates. The analogous instability in the intracluster medium may result because of the magnetic field mediated anisotropic diffusions of the heat and the helium ions (in the sea of hydrogen ions and free electrons). These two diffusions have inherently different diffusion rates. Hence, the convection caused by the onset of this instability is an example of double diffusive convection in the astrophysical setting. A consequence of this instability is the formation of vertical filamentary structures that have a greater concentration of helium ions with respect to the immediate neighbourhoods of the filaments. We call these structures helium fingers in analogy with the salt fingers found in the case of the salt finger instability. Here we show that the width of a helium finger scales as one-fourth power of the radius of the inner region of the intracluster medium in the supercritical regime. We also determine the explicit mathematical expression of the criterion for the onset of the heat-flux-driven buoyancy instability modified by the presence of inhomogeneously distributed helium ions.

Kinetic inhibition of magnetohydrodynamics shocks in the vicinity of a parallel magnetic field

According to magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), the encounter of two collisional magnetized plasmas at high velocity gives rise to shock waves. Investigations conducted so far have found that the same conclusion still holds in the case of collisionless plasmas. For the case of a flow-aligned field, MHD stipulates that the field and the fluid are disconnected, so that the shock produced is independent of the field. We present a violation of this MHD prediction when considering the encounter of two cold pair plasmas along a flow-aligned magnetic field. As the guiding magnetic field grows, isotropization is progressively suppressed, resulting in a strong influence of the field on the resulting structure. A micro-physics analysis allows us to understand the mechanisms at work. Particle-in-cell simulations also support our conclusions and show that the results are not restricted to a strictly parallel field.

Dynamic properties of ionospheric plasma turbulence driven by high-power high-frequency radiowaves

A review is given of the current state-of-the-art of experimental studies and the theoretical understanding of nonlinear phenomena that occur in the ionospheric F-layer irradiated by high-power high-frequency ground-based transmitters. The main focus is on the dynamic features of high-frequency turbulence (plasma waves) and low-frequency turbulence (density irregularities of various scales) that have been studied in experiments at the Sura and HAARP heating facilities operated in temporal and frequency regimes specially designed with consideration of the characteristic properties of nonlinear processes in the perturbed ionosphere using modern radio receivers and optical instruments. Experimental results are compared with theoretical turbulence models for a magnetized collisional plasma in a high-frequency electromagnetic field, allowing the identification of the processes responsible for the observed features of artificial ionospheric turbulence.

Generation of terahertz radiation by beating of two laser beams in collisional magnetized plasma

AbstractThis paper presents analytical calculations for terahertz (THz) radiation by beating of two cosh-Gaussian laser beams in a density rippled collisional magnetized plasma. Lasers beams exert a ponderomotive force on the electrons of plasma in beating frequency which generates THz waves. The magnetic field was considered parallel to the direction of lasers which leads to propagate right-hand circularly polarized or left-hand circularly polarized waves in the plasma depending on the phase matching conditions. Effects of collision frequency, decentered parameter of lasers and the magnetic field strength are analyzed for THz radiation generation. By the optimization of laser and plasma parameters, the efficiency of order 27% can be achieved.

Propagation of arbitrary amplitude dust-ion acoustic waves in the collisional magnetized dusty plasma in the presence of non-thermal electrons

Using the Sagdeev pseudo-potential method, the oblique propagation of dust-ion acoustic solitary waves is studied in a magnetized dusty plasma. By considering non-thermal distribution of electrons, the related pseudo-potential is obtained using the Poisson equation. The behavior of the wave is investigated for some ranges of parameters. It is demonstrated that the increase in ion density, lz, β, and also δ1 can lead to the increases in the width and amplitude of the pseudo-potential, while any increase of a2, the coefficient that describes the first nonlinear term in the G(ϕ), increases the amplitude of the V(ϕ).

Nonlinear coherent structures of Alfvén wave in a collisional plasma

The Alfvén wave dynamics is investigated in the framework of two-fluid approach in a compressible collisional magnetized plasma. In the finite amplitude limit, the dynamics of the nonlinear Alfvén wave is found to be governed by a modified Korteweg-de Vries Burgers equation (mKdVB). In this mKdVB equation, the electron inertia is found to act as a source of dispersion, and the electron-ion collision serves as a dissipation. The collisional dissipation is eventually responsible for the Burgers term in mKdVB equation. In the long wavelength limit, this weakly nonlinear Alfvén wave is shown to be governed by a damped nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Furthermore, these nonlinear equations are analyzed by means of analytical calculation and numerical simulation to elucidate the various aspects of the phase-space dynamics of the nonlinear wave. Results reveal that nonlinear Alfvén wave exhibits the dissipation mediated shock, envelope, and breather like structures. Numerical simulations also predict the formation of dissipative Alfvénic rogue wave, giant breathers, and rogue wave holes. These results are discussed in the context of the space plasma.

Magnetosonic shock wave in collisional pair-ion plasma

Nonlinear propagation of magnetosonic shock wave has been studied in collisional magnetized pair-ion plasma. The masses of both ions are same but the temperatures are slightly different. Two fluid model has been taken to describe the model. Two different modes of the magnetosonic wave have been obtained. The dynamics of the nonlinear magnetosonic wave is governed by the Korteweg-de Vries Burgers' equation. It has been shown that the ion-ion collision is the source of dissipation that causes the Burgers' term which is responsible for the shock structures in equal mass pair-ion plasma. The numerical investigations reveal that the magnetosonic wave exhibits both oscillatory and monotonic shock structures depending on the strength of the dissipation. The nonlinear wave exhibited the oscillatory shock wave for strong magnetic field (weak dissipation) and monotonic shock wave for weak magnetic field (strong dissipation). The results have been discussed in the context of the fullerene pair-ion plasma experiments.

A fully-implicit finite-volume method for multi-fluid reactive and collisional magnetized plasmas on unstructured meshes

We present a Finite Volume scheme for solving Maxwell's equations coupled to magnetized multi-fluid plasma equations for reactive and collisional partially ionized flows on unstructured meshes. The inclusion of the displacement current allows for studying electromagnetic wave propagation in a plasma as well as charge separation effects beyond the standard magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) description, however, it leads to a very stiff system with characteristic velocities ranging from the speed of sound of the fluids up to the speed of light. In order to control the fulfillment of the elliptical constraints of the Maxwell's equations, we use the hyperbolic divergence cleaning method. In this paper, we extend the latter method applying the CIR scheme with scaled numerical diffusion in order to balance those terms with the Maxwell flux vectors. For the fluids, we generalize the AUSM+-up to multiple fluids of different species within the plasma. The fully implicit second-order method is first verified on the Hartmann flow (including comparison with its analytical solution), two ideal MHD cases with strong shocks, namely, Orszag-Tang and the MHD rotor, then validated on a much more challenging case, representing a two-fluid magnetic reconnection under solar chromospheric conditions. For the latter case, a comparison with pioneering results available in literature is provided.

Strong terahertz radiation generation by beating of two spatial-triangular beams in collisional magnetized plasma

A scheme of terahertz (THz) radiation generation is proposed by beating of two spatial-triangular laser beams in plasma with a spatially periodic density when electron–neutral collisions have taken into account. In this process, the laser beams exert a ponderomotive force on the electrons of the plasma and impart the oscillatory velocity at the difference frequency in the presence of a static magnetic field which is applied parallel to the direction of the lasers. We show that higher efficiency and stronger THz radiation are achieved when the parallel magnetic field is used to compare the perpendicular magnetic field. The effects of beam width of lasers, collision frequency, periodicity of density ripples, and magnetic field strength are analyzed for strong THz radiation generation. The THz field of the emitted radiations is found to be highly sensitive to collision frequency and magnetic field strength. In this scheme with the optimization of plasma parameters, the efficiency of order 21% is achieved.

Response to “Comment on ‘Propagation of surface waves on a semi-bounded quantum magnetized collisional plasma’” [Phys. Plasmas 23, 044701 (2016)

We reply to the Comment of Moradi [Phys. Plasmas 23, 044701 (2016)] on our paper [Phys. Plasmas 20, 122106 (2013)]. It is shown that TM surface waves can propagate on the surface of a semi-bounded quantum magnetized collisional plasma in the Faraday configuration in the electrostatic limit. In addition, in the Faraday configuration, one can neglect the coupling of TM and TE modes in the two limiting cases of weak magnetic field (low cyclotron frequency) and strong magnetic field (high cyclotron frequency).

Comment on “Propagation of surface waves on a semi-bounded quantum magnetized collisional plasma” [Phys. Plasmas 20, 122106 (2013)

In a recent article [Niknam et al., Phys. Plasmas 20, 122106 (2013)], Niknam et al. investigated the propagation of TM surface waves on a semi-bounded quantum magnetized collisional plasma in the Faraday configuration (in this case, the magnetic field is parallel to the both of the plasma surface and direction of propagation). Here, we present a fresh look at the problem and show that TM surface waves cannot propagate on surface of the present system. We find in the Faraday configuration the surface waves acquire both TM and TE components due to the cyclotron motion of electrons. Therefore, the main result of the work by Niknam et al. is incorrect.

Ion temperature and gas pressure effects on the magnetized sheath dynamics during plasma immersion ion implantation

Here, a collisional magnetized plasma with finite ion temperature is considered to examine the effects of the ion temperature and gas pressure on the plasma-sheath dynamics. We use the two-fluid model of plasma-sheath where the nonlinear equations of a dynamic sheath are solved using a full implicit scheme of finite difference method along with some convenient initial and boundary conditions at the plasma center and target. It is found that the ion temperature only has a significant effect on the characteristics of low voltage sheath, while the gas pressure (collision rate) seriously affects the dynamic characteristics of the low and high voltage plasma-sheath. One can see, increasing the ion temperature in low voltage plasma-sheath causes to increase the temporal curve of the ion dose and the ion impact energy on the target, reduces the temporal curve of the sheath width, and has no any effect on the temporal curve of the ion incident angle on the target. However, rising the gas pressure in low and high voltage plasma-sheath reduces all of these temporal curves.

Effect of dc-magnetic field on the growth rate of Raman backscattering of X-mode laser in magnetized collisional plasma

AbstractStimulated Raman backward scattering of an X-mode laser beam propagating in a homogenous plasma is studied in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. As the laser propagates in its X-mode in plasma, it decays into an upper hybrid wave and a down-shifted sideband wave. Beating the incident laser with the sideband exerts a nonlinear ponderomotive force acting on plasma electrons driving the excited upper hybrid wave. The incident wave then parametrically couples with the upper hybrid wave to drive the sideband. Using the fluid model and nonlinear current density, the nonlinear ponderomotive force is obtained to find the dispersion relation of the scattered sideband wave and the growth rate of the instability in the weakly relativistic regime. It is shown that the growth rate decreases and the cut-off points in the normalized wave number of the upper-hybrid wave become smaller by increasing the static magnetic field.

The Hall-diffusion–driven shear instability of a magnetized collisional dusty plasma

If the relative drift between the charged dust and magnetised electrons and ions which give rise to the Hall diffusion in a dusty plasma dominates the dynamics, the plasma may become diffusively unstable in the presence of shear flow. The growth rate of the diffusive instability is the geometric mean of the whistler and the shear frequencies. The role of the magnetic field is important in destabilising the waves as the growth rate of the instability is dependent on both the ambient magnetic field strength as well as on the dust charge.

Self-focusing and defocusing of Gaussian laser beams in collisional underdense magnetized plasmas with considering the nonlinear ohmic heating and ponderomotive force effects

The propagation characteristics of a Gaussian laser beam in collisional magnetized plasma are investigated by considering the ponderomotive and ohmic heating nonlinearities. Here, by taking into account the effect of the external magnetic field, the second order differential equation of the dimensionless beam width parameter is solved numerically. Furthermore, the nonlinear dielectric permittivity of the mentioned plasma medium in the paraxial approximation and its dependence on the propagation characteristics of the Gaussian laser pulse is obtained, and its variation in terms of the dimensionless plasma length is analyzed at different initial normalized plasma and cyclotron frequencies. The results show that the dimensionless beam width parameter is strongly affected by the initial plasma frequency, magnetic strength, and laser pulse intensity. Furthermore, it is found that there exists a certain intensity value below which the laser pulse tends to self focus, while the beam diverges above of this value. In addition, the results confirm that, by increasing the plasma and cyclotron frequencies (plasma density and magnetic strength), the self-focusing effect can occur intensively.

Magnetized plasma sheath with two positive ions where collision frequencies have a power law dependency on ions velocities

We study the dynamics of collisional magnetized plasma sheath with two species of positive ions by using the plasma fluid model. The basic equations of the fluid model are solved numerically where the sheath is in the external magnetic field and the elastic collision between ions and neutrals has been taken into account. In our model, we assume that the collisional momentum transferring cross section has a power law dependency on ion flow velocity. Our analysis demonstrates that the sheath dynamics are sensitive to the power law dependency, especially for the ion with greater density.

Nonlinear Alfvén wave dynamics in plasmas

Nonlinear Alfvén wave dynamics is presented using Lagrangian fluid approach in a compressible collisional magnetized plasma. In the framework of two fluid dynamics, finite electron inertia is shown to serve as a dispersive effect acting against the convective nonlinearity. In a moving frame, the Alfvén wave can, therefore, form an arbitrarily strong amplitude solitary wave structure due to the balance between nonlinearity and dispersion. Weak amplitude Alfvén waves are shown to be governed by a modified KdV equation, which extends for finite dissipation to a mKdV-Burgers equation. These equations have well known solutions. Next, we have analyzed the fourth order nonlinear Alfvén wave system of equations both numerically and by approximation method. The results indicate a collapse of the density and magnetic field irrespective of the presence of dispersion. The wave magnetic field, however, appears to be less singular showing collapse only when the dispersive effects are negligible. These results may contribute to our understanding of the generation of strongly localized magnetic fields (and currents) in plasmas and are expected to be of special importance in the astrophysical context of magnetic star formation.

Enhancement of terahertz emission in magnetized collisional plasma

We carry out analytical calculations for the electric field amplitude and efficiency of the mechanism of terahertz (THz) radiation generated due to interaction of super-Gaussian lasers with collisional plasma. The contribution of magnetic field and the role of index of lasers for enhancing the field amplitude are uncovered under the effect of laser beam width and collision frequency between electrons and neutrals. Terahertz radiation with larger electric field is realized when lasers of higher index and lower beam widths interact with the plasma in the presence of an external static magnetic field. Under optimized parameters, THz field amplitude of about 107 kV m−1 and 6% efficiency of the mechanism can be realized using the lasers with field 5.0 × 1010 V m−1.

Heat flux viscosity in collisional magnetized plasmas

Momentum transport in collisional magnetized plasmas due to gradients in the heat flux, a “heat flux viscosity,” is demonstrated. Even though no net particle flux is associated with a heat flux, in a plasma there can still be momentum transport owing to the velocity dependence of the Coulomb collision frequency, analogous to the thermal force. This heat-flux viscosity may play an important role in numerous plasma environments, in particular, in strongly driven high-energy-density plasma, where strong heat flux can dominate over ordinary plasma flows. The heat flux viscosity can influence the dynamics of the magnetic field in plasmas through the generalized Ohm's law and may therefore play an important role as a dissipation mechanism allowing magnetic field line reconnection. The heat flux viscosity is calculated directly using the finite-difference method of Epperlein and Haines [Phys. Fluids 29, 1029 (1986)], which is shown to be more accurate than Braginskii's method [S. I. Braginskii, Rev. Plasma Phys. 1, 205 (1965)], and confirmed with one-dimensional collisional particle-in-cell simulations. The resulting transport coefficients are tabulated for ease of application.