C. Bruulsema | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Sustained interpenetrating plasma flows for the investigation of late time kinetic instability evolution

Sustained collisionless interpenetrating plasma flows have been generated on the OMEGA laser facility to enable direct investigation of nonlinear evolution of fields generated by electromagnetic kinetic instabilities. FLASH simulations and Thomson scattering measurements are used to determine the plasma conditions achieved. Interpenetrating flows are observed to remain collisionless for at least 11 ns, longer than any prior OMEGA experiment, supporting the growth and nonlinear saturation of the Weibel instability. Resulting magnetic fields are measured using proton radiography. This work establishes a unique platform for late-time filament evolution measurements.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2021

Quantitative assessment of fitting errors associated with streak camera noise in Thomson scattering data analysis

Thomson scattering measurements in High Energy Density experiments are often recorded using optical streak cameras. In the low-signal regime, noise introduced by the streak camera can become an important and sometimes the dominate source of measurement uncertainty. In this paper we present a formal method of accounting for the presence of streak camera noise in our measurements. We present a phenomenological description of the noise generation mechanisms and present a statistical model that may be used to construct the covariance matrix associated with a given measurement. This model is benchmarked against simulations of streak camera images. We demonstrate how this covariance may then be used to weight fitting of the data and provide quantitative assessments of the uncertainty in the fitting parameters determined by the best fit to the data. These methods will have general applicability to other measurements made using optical streak cameras.

physics.data-an↗