Temporal evolution of high mach number electrostatic shocks in laboratory plasma

Summary form only given. Collisionless shocks are relevant to a variety of astrophysical scenarios, such as the generation of highly energetic particles and cosmic rays during supernova explosions, and have recently been the focus of several laboratory plasma investigations employing high-power lasers. We present here a study of the generation and evolution of collisionless shocks in tenuous plasma, carried out at the VULCAN laser facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The shocks are generated during the expansion of a warm plasma, produced after the irradiation of a thin solid foil by a long (~1ns) and intense (~10¹⁵ W/cm²) laser pulse, into a tenuous (~ 10¹⁶ cm^-3), non magnetized background plasma. Shock structures are seen to develop at the interface between the two plasmas. The shocks are probed via a proton projection imaging (PPI) technique [1], which allows one to measure the electric field distribution at the shock front with high spatial resolution (~ μm), and temporally resolve its propagation within a ps scale. The temporal evolution of electrostatic shocks in ambient plasma has been observed and the associated electric field has been reconstructed in a number of different conditions. In particular, we have identified in the data the transition from an unipolar field profile, typical of a double layer structure, into a bipolar electric field, and the subsequent formation of a collisionless, electrostatic shock. This structure is then seen to propagate in the ambient plasma with a Mach number ~3.5. A PIC simulation supports the existence of high Mach number (~3.3) shocks launched by collision of plasma clouds of equal electron and ion temperatures [2].