English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The magnetic field produced by planets with active dynamos, like the Earth,can exert sufficient pressure to oppose supersonic stellar wind plasmas,leading to the formation of a standing bow shock upstream of the magnetopause,or pressure-balance surface. Scaled laboratory experiments studying theinteraction of an inflowing solar wind analog with a strong, external magneticfield are a promising new way to study magnetospheric physics and to complementexisting models, although reaching regimes favorable for magnetized shockformation is experimentally challenging. This paper presents experimentalevidence of the formation of a magnetized bow shock in the interaction of asupersonic, super-Alfv\'enic plasma with a strongly magnetized obstacle at theOMEGA laser facility. The solar wind analog is generated by the collision andsubsequent expansion of two counter-propagating, laser-driven plasma plumes.The magnetized obstacle is a thin wire, driven with strong electrical currents.Hydrodynamic simulations using the FLASH code predict the colliding plasmasource meets the criteria for bow shock formation. Spatially resolved, opticalThomson scattering measures the electron number density, and optical emissionlines provide a measurement of the plasma temperature, from which we infer thepresence of a fast magnetosonic shock far upstream of the obstacle. Protonimages provide a measure of large-scale features in the magnetic fieldtopology, and reconstructed path-integrated magnetic field maps from theseimages suggest the formation of a bow shock upstream of the wire and as atransient magnetopause. We compare features in the reconstructed fields totwo-dimensional MHD simulations of the system.

Experimental observations of detached bow shock formation in the interaction of a laser-produced plasma with a magnetized obstacle