Emergent kink stability of a magnetized plasma jet injected into a transverse background magnetic field
Abstract
We report experimental results on the injection of a magnetized plasma jet into a transverse background magnetic field in the HelCat linear plasma device at the University of New Mexico [M. Gilmore et al., J. Plasma Phys. 81(1), 345810104 (2015)]. After the plasma jet leaves the plasma-gun muzzle, a tension force arising from an increasing curvature of the background magnetic field induces in the jet a sheared axial-flow gradient above the theoretical kink-stabilization threshold. We observe that this emergent sheared axial flow stabilizes the n = 1 kink mode in the jet, whereas a kink instability is observed in the jet when there is no background magnetic field present.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 2017
- Source ID
- 10.1063/1.5010188
Entities
People
- Alan G. Lynn
- Dustin M. Fisher
- Mark Gilmore
- Scott C Hsu
- Y. Zhang
Organizations
- Army Research Office
- Division of Astronomical Sciences
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- University of New Mexico