arXiv subjects

Amita Das

Publications and source records attributed to Amita Das.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Excitation of lower hybrid and magneto-sonic perturbations in laser plasma interaction

Lower hybrid (LH) and magneto-sonic (MS) waves are well known modes of magnetized plasma. These modes play important roles in many phenomena. The lower hybrid wave is often employed in magnetic confinement fusion experiments for current drive and heating purposes. Both LH and MS waves are observed in various astrophysical and space plasma observations. These waves involve ion motion and have not therefore been considered in high power pulsed laser experiments. This paper shows, with the help of Particle - In - Cell (PIC) simulations, a simple mechanism for excitation of lower hybrid and magnetosonic excitations in the context of laser plasma interaction. A detailed study characterising the formation and propagation of these modes have been provided. The scheme for generating these perturbations relies on the application of a strong magnetic field in the plasma to constrain the motion of lighter electron species in the laser electric field. The magnetic field strength is chosen so as to leave the heavier ions un-magnetized at the laser frequency. This helps in the excitation of the LH waves. On the other hand at the slower time scale associated with the laser pulse duration, even the ions show a magnetized response and magnetosonic excitations are observed to get excited.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2020

Dynamical states in two-dimensional charged dust particle clusters in plasma medium

The formation of novel dynamical states for a collection of dust particles in two dimensions has been shown with the help of Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation. The charged dust particles interact with each other with Yukawa pair potential mimicking the screening due to plasma. Additionally, an external radial confining force has also been applied to the dust particles to keep them radially confined. When the particle number is low ( say a few), they get arranged on the radial location corresponding to multiple rings/shells. For specific numbers, such an arrangement of particles is stationary. However, for several cases, the cluster of dust particles relaxes to a state for which the dust particles on rings display inter-shell rotation. For a larger number of dust particles ( a few hundred for instance ) a novel equilibrium state with coherent rigid body displaying angular oscillation of the entire cluster is observed. A detailed characterization of the formation of these states in terms of particle number, coupling parameter, etc., has been provided.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2020

A numerical study of gravity driven instability in strongly coupled dusty plasmas.Part I: Rayleigh-Taylor instability and Buoyancy-driven instability

Rayleigh-Taylor and Buoyancy-driven instabilities are very common instabilities for an inhomogeneous medium. We examine here how these instabilities grow for incompressible viscoelastic fluids like a strongly coupled dusty plasma by using incompressible generalized hydrodynamic (i-GHD) fluid model. Since the dust particles are pretty massive, the gravitational attraction of earth has a significant role in its dynamics. In this paper the acceleration due to gravity g and the role of strong coupling in the context of gravitationally stratified dusty plasma fluid have been considered. We find that the appearance of elasticity speed up the growth of viscoelastic RT instability by reducing the effect of viscosity at timescales shorter than the Maxwell relaxation time ${τ_m}$. The buoyancy driven situation with spatially localized (in both dimensions) of low/high density regions placed in a background medium has also been evolved in the presence of gravity. Our studies show that both the instabilities get suppressed with increasing coupling strength of the medium. This suppression has been illustrated analytically as well as by carrying out a two-dimensional fully nonlinear simulation.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2020

Spontaneous formation of magnetic dipoles by interaction of intense laser with overdense plasma

When a laser field is incident on an overdense plasma it is unable to penetrate inside it. Nevertheless, a part of its energy gets transferred to the electrons through a variety of mechanisms (e.g. vacuum and $\vec{J}\times \vec{B}) heating [1, 2]). The dynamics of these energetic electrons inside the plasma is a field of great interest. It is demonstrated here using 2-D PIC (Particle-In-Cell) simulation that when a high intensity laser pulse is incident on an overdense target, energetic electrons get generated which spontaneously organize themselves to form coherent structures. These coherent structures are observed to have similar dynamical traits as displayed by the solutions of the EMHD (Electron Magnetohydrodynamic) model [3]. This is noteworthy that EMHD is an approximate model and is applicable for the dynamics of non-relativistic electrons. However, in these simulations, the electron energy is in the relativistic regime as the laser intensity is significantly high. Thus, it shows that the relativistic dynamics also permits the existence of robust coherent structures. Interesting kinetic behaviour at particle level is observed in the simulation which shows that the coherent structures take background electrons in its fold and subsequently emit them at a higher energy.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2020

Propagation of slow electromagnetic disturbances in plasma

Electromagnetic (EM) waves/disturbances are typically the best means to understand and analyze an ionized medium like plasma. However, the propagation of electromagnetic waves with frequency lower than the plasma frequency is prohibited by the freely moving charges of the plasma. In dense plasmas though the plasma frequency can be typically quite high, EM sources at such higher frequency are not easily available. It is, therefore, of interest to seek possibilities wherein a low frequency (lower than the plasma frequency) EM disturbance propagates inside a plasma. This is possible in the context of magnetized plasmas. However, in order to have a magnetized plasma response one requires a strong external magnetic field. In this manuscript we demonstrate that the nonlinearity of the plasma medium can also aid the propagation of a slow EM wave inside plasma. Certain interesting applications of the propagation of such slow electromagnetic pulse through plasma is also discussed.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2020

Excitation and breaking of relativistic electron beam driven longitudinal electron-ion modes in a cold plasma

The excitation and breaking of relativistically intense electron-ion modes in a cold plasma is studied using 1D-fluid simulation techniques. To excite the mode, we have used a relativistic rigid homogeneous electron beam propagating inside a plasma with a velocity close to the speed of light. It is observed that the wake wave excited by the electron beam is identical to the corresponding Khachatryan mode, a relativistic electron-ion mode in a cold plasma. It is also seen in the simulation that the numerical profile of the excited electron-ion mode gradually modifies with time and eventually breaks after several plasma periods exhibiting explosive behavior in the density profile. This is an well known phenomena, known as wave breaking. It is found that the numerical wave breaking limit of these modes lies much below than their analytical breaking limit. The discrepancy between the numerical and analytical wave breaking limit has been understood in terms of phase-mixing process of the mode. The phase mixing time (or wave breaking time) obtained from the simulations has also been scaled as a function of beam parameters and found to follow the analytical scaling.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2019

Effect of Transverse Beam Size on the Wakefields and Driver Beam Dynamics in Electron Beam Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration

In this paper, wakefields driven by a relativistic electron beam in a cold homogeneous plasma is studied using 2-D fluid simulation techniques. It has been shown that in the limit when the transverse size of a rigid beam is greater than the longitudinal extension, the wake wave acquires purely an electrostatic form and the simulation results show a good agreement with the 1-D results given by Ratan et al. [Phys. Plasmas, 22, 073109 (2015)]. In the other limit, when the transverse dimensions are equal or smaller than the longitudinal extension, the wake waves are electromagnetic in nature. Furthermore, a linear theoretical analysis of 2-D wakefields for a rigid bi-parabolic beam has also been done and compared with the simulations. It has also been shown that the transformer ratio which a key parameter that measures the efficiency in the process of acceleration, becomes higher for a 2-D system (i.e. for a beam having a smaller transverse extension compared to longitudinal length) than the 1-D system (beam having larger transverse extension compared to longitudinal length). Furthermore, including the self-consistent evolution of the driver beam in the simulation, we have seen that the beam propagating inside the plasma undergoes the transverse pinching which occurs much earlier than the longitudinal modification. Due to the presence of transverse dimensions in the system the 1-D rigidity limit given by Tsiklauri et al. [Phys. Plasmas, 25, 032114 (2018)] gets modified. We have also demonstrated the modified rigidity limit for the driver beam in a 2-D beam-plasma system.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2019

A new mechanism of direct coupling of laser energy to ions

The well-known schemes (e.g. Brunel, resonance absorption, JxB heating etc.) couple laser energy to the lighter electron species of the plasma. In this work, a fundamentally new mechanism of laser energy absorption directly to the heavier ion species has been proposed. The mechanism relies on the difference between the ExB drifts of electron and ions in the oscillating electric field of the laser and an external magnetic field to create charge density perturbations. The proposed mechanism is verified with the help of Particle - In - Cell (PIC) simulations using OSIRIS4.0.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2019

Drift waves with dust acoustic wave coupling

Drift wave is a prominent mode of a magnetized plasma of inhomogeneous density. It plays an important role in the transport of particles, energy and momentum perpendicular to the ambient magnetic field. The frequency of this mode is governed by the inhomogeneity scale length and is much lower than the typical homogeneous plasma modes involving ions and electrons. In this work the possibility of coupling of this particular mode with the low frequency modes of a dusty plasma medium is considered.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

Molecular dynamics study of crystal formation and structural phase transition in Yukawa system for dusty plasma medium

The layered crystal formation in dusty plasma medium depicted by the Yukawa interaction amidst dust has been investigated using Molecular Dynamics simulations. The multilayer structures are shown to form in the presence of a combined gravitational and external electric field force (representing the sheath field in experiments) along the ^ z direction. A detailed study of the dependence of the number of crystal layer formation, their width etc., on various system parameters (viz., the external field profile and the screening length of Yukawa interaction) have been analyzed. The structural properties of crystalline bilayers have been studied in detail identifying their structures with the help of pair correlation function and Voronoi diagrams. It has been shown that the crystalline layers undergo structural phase transition from hexagonal (often also referred as triangular ) to square lattice configurations. A reentrant phase transition from hexagonal to square (and rhombic) structure has been observed in the simulations.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

Excitation of KdV Alfven solitons by a pulsed CO2 laser in plasma in the presence of an external magnetic field

The interaction of laser with plasmas leads to many interesting phenomena which includes laser energy absorption, mode conversion, energetic particle generation etc. In this work, the excitation of Korteweg - de Vries (KdV) Alfven solitons in plasma is demonstrated with the help of 2-D Particle - In - Cell (PIC) simulations. For this purpose, the propagation of a pulsed $CO_2$ (with a wavelength of $10 μm$) laser normally incident on an overdense plasma target is considered in the presence of an external magnetic field. The magnitude of the external magnetic field is chosen so as to have the electrons magnetized and ions unmagnetized at the laser frequency. These solitons propagate stably and are observed to be responsible for energetic electron generation as the background undisturbed electrons of the medium get reflected from its front. It is also shown that subsequently, transverse modulations appear in the structure which grow with time. With recent technological advancements in the development of short pulse $CO_2$ lasers and also on the generation of magnetic fields of the order of tens of kilo - Tesla in the laboratory, these studies have practical relevance and have a possibility of getting replicated in laboratory in near future.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

Fast Ignition Laser Fusion Using In-Situ Ion Acceleration With Pulsed CO2 Lasers

Fast ignition is an alternative concept of laser fusion in which the task of compressing the fusion pellet to supersolid densities is accomplished by the conventional high energy nanosecond glass lasers and the task of igniting the compressed pellet is given to a high intensity, moderate energy pico second source which can set the pellet ablaze (with DT fusion reactions) by creating an adequate size hot spot in it. In this letter, we present a conceptual method by which energy from carbon dioxide ($ CO_2 $) laser could be coupled to heat up ions produced in situ in the plasma, which in turn produces the required hot spot. An efficient conversion of $ CO_2 $ energy into ion beam energy can thus give us the required source of energy for the fast ignition laser fusion. We demonstrate by using PIC (Particle - In - Cell) simulations that the use of several Kilo Tesla of an external magnetic field in the transverse direction in an inhomogeneous plasma where a cutoff is followed by a resonance can lead to coupling of laser energy to a lower hybrid ion plasma resonance. Then ions are accelerated efficiently ($\sim 1 MeV$) by the breaking of lower hybrid waves and thereby enabling the possibility of fast ignition by ions in a convenient fashion.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

Spiral waves in driven strongly coupled Yukawa systems

Spiral wave formations are ubiquitous in nature. In the present paper, the excitation of spiral waves in the context of driven two-dimensional dusty plasma (Yukawa system) has been demonstrated at particle level using molecular dynamics simulations. The interaction amidst dust particles is modeled by Yukawa potential to take account of the shielding of dust charges by the lighter electron and ions species. Spatiotemporal evolution of these spiral waves has been characterized as a function of frequency and amplitude of the driving force, dust neutral collisions etc. The effect of strong coupling has been studied which show that the excited spiral wave structures get clearer as the medium gets more strongly coupled. The radial propagation speed of the spiral wave is observed to remain unaltered with the coupling parameter. However, it is found to depend on the screening parameter of the dust medium and decreases when it is increased. In the crystalline phase (with screening parameter \k{appa} > 0.58), spiral wavefront are shown to be hexagonal in shape. This shows that the radial propagation speed depends on the interparticle spacing.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

2-D fluid simulation of a rigid relativistic electron beam driven wakefield in a cold plasma

Fluid simulations, which are considerably simpler and faster, have been employed to study the behavior of the wakefield driven by a relativistic rigid beam in a 2-D cold plasma. When the transverse dimensions of the beam are chosen to be much larger than its longitudinal extent, a good agreement with our previous 1-D results [\textcolor{red}{\it Physics of Plasmas 22, 073109 (2015)}] are observed for both under-dense and over-dense beams. When the beam is overdense and its transverse extent is smaller or close to the longitudinal extension, the 2-D blow-out structure, observed in PIC simulations and analytically modeled by Lu et al. [\textcolor{red}{\it Phys. Rev. Lett., 96, 165002 (2006)}] are recovered. For quantitative assessment of particle acceleration in such a wake potential structure test electrons are employed. It is shown that the maximum energy gained by the test electrons placed at the back of the driver beam of energy $\sim 28.5$ GeV, reaches up to $2.6$ GeV in a 10 cm long plasma. These observations are consistent with the experimental results presented in ref. [\textcolor{red}{\it Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 054802 (2005)}]. It is also demonstrated that the energy gained by the test electrons get doubled ($\sim 5.2$ GeV) when the test particles are placed near the axis at the end of the first blowout structure.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2018

Interplay of single particle and collective response in molecular dynamics simulation of dusty plasma system

Collective response of the plasma medium is well known and has been explored extensively in several contexts. The single particle response is typically treated as collisional interactions leading to dissipative effects. In this manuscript a 2D molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of dusty plasma with Yukawa interactions amidst dust grains have been considered in a strongly coupled regime. It has been shown that disturbances induced in the crystal by introducing highly charged particle elicit both collective and single particle responses. The single particle collisional interaction often generates highly energetic few particles which move with speeds exceeding the acoustic and also the shock velocity (which gets excited by the external moving body inserted in the medium). The dust crystal is observed to crack and deform along the path of these energetic particles. Ultimately as they slow down they excite collective response in the medium. It is thus observed that the medium ahead of the shock gets disturbed by these energetic particles generated by collisional interaction. The trailing shock then sees a disturbed medium. It is thus clear that there is an interesting interplay between the single particle and collective response in the medium which governs the dynamics.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2017

Spiral Waves in Driven Dusty Plasma Medium: Generalized Hydrodynamic Fluid Description

Spiral waves are observed in many natural phenomena. They have been extensively represented by the mathematical FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) model [Barkley et al., Phys. Rev. A 42, 2489 (1990)] of excitable media. In incompressible fluid simulations also excitation of thermal spiral waves have been reported by Li et al. [Phys. of Fluids 22, 011701 (2010)]. In the present manuscript the spatiotemporal development of spiral waves in the context of weak and strong coupling limits have been shown. While the weakly coupled medium has been represented by a simple fluid description, for the strong coupling a generalized visco - elastic fluid description has been employed. The medium has been driven by an external force in the form of a rotating electric field. It is shown that when the amplitude of force is small the density perturbations in the medium are also small. In this case the excitations do not develop as a spiral wave. Only when the amplitude of force is high so as to drive the density perturbations to nonlinear amplitudes does the spiral density wave formation occur. The role of forcing frequency, the effect of strong coupling and sound velocity of medium on the formation and evolution of spiral waves have been investigated in detail.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2017

Evidence of new finite beam plasma instability for magnetic field generation

We demonstrate by computer simulations, laser plasma experiments, and analytic theory that a hitherto unknown instability is excited in the beam plasma system with finite transverse size. This instability is responsible for the generation of magnetic fields at scales comparable to the transverse beam dimension which can be much longer than the electron skin depth scale. This counterintuitive result arises due to radiative leakage associated with finite beam boundaries which are absent in conventional infinite periodic systems considered in earlier simulations as well as theoretical analyses and may trigger a reexamination of a hitherto prevalent idea.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2017

Ion Vortex Beam

Recent advances in intense short pulse laser interaction with thin foil enable us to accelerates the ions upto relativistic velocity in a controlled way. The accelerated ion beams can be utilized to generate the ion vortex beam in a similar way as it has been done for electron, neutron and photon vortex beam case. We present a theoretical demonstration of ion vortex beam with orbital angular mo- mentum (OAM) generated from a relativistic laser-matter interaction rearranged into vortex beam by using phase shifter or computer generated holography. We show that a Laguerre-Gaussian beam exit for Schrodinger, Klein-Gordon and Dirac particles. This study will motivate to explore the existence of ion vortex beam experimentally.

physics.plasm-ph↗