Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T11:59:21.074Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Wisconsin Plasma Astrophysics Laboratory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2015

C. B. Forest*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
K. Flanagan
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
M. Brookhart
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
M. Clark
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
C. M. Cooper
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
V. Désangles
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS, and Université de Lyon, 46 Allée d’Italie, 69364 Lyon CEDEX 7, France
J. Egedal
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
D. Endrizzi
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
I. V. Khalzov
Affiliation:
National Research Centre ‘Kurchatov Institute’, Moscow123182, Russia
H. Li
Affiliation:
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA
M. Miesch
Affiliation:
High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA
J. Milhone
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
M. Nornberg
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
J. Olson
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
E. Peterson
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
F. Roesler
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
A. Schekochihin
Affiliation:
Rudolph Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 6NP, UK Merton College, Oxford OS1 4JD, UK
O. Schmitz
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
R. Siller
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
A. Spitkovsky
Affiliation:
Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
A. Stemo
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
J. Wallace
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
D. Weisberg
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
E. Zweibel
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA
*
Email address for correspondence: cbforest@wisc.edu

Abstract

The Wisconsin Plasma Astrophysics Laboratory (WiPAL) is a flexible user facility designed to study a range of astrophysically relevant plasma processes as well as novel geometries that mimic astrophysical systems. A multi-cusp magnetic bucket constructed from strong samarium cobalt permanent magnets now confines a $10~\text{m}^{3}$, fully ionized, magnetic-field-free plasma in a spherical geometry. Plasma parameters of $T_{e}\approx 5$ to $20~\text{eV}$ and $n_{e}\approx 10^{11}$ to $5\times 10^{12}~\text{cm}^{-3}$ provide an ideal testbed for a range of astrophysical experiments, including self-exciting dynamos, collisionless magnetic reconnection, jet stability, stellar winds and more. This article describes the capabilities of WiPAL, along with several experiments, in both operating and planning stages, that illustrate the range of possibilities for future users.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexakis, A., Mininni, P. D. & Pouquet, A. 2006 On the inverse cascade of magnetic helicity. Astrophys. J. 640 (1), 335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, S. A. 2007 Ages for illustrative field stars using gyrochronology: viability, limitations, and errors. Astrophys. J. 669, 11671189.Google Scholar
Battaglia, D. J., Bongard, M. W., Fonck, R. J., Redd, A. J. & Sontag, A. C. 2009 Tokamak startup using point-source dc helicity injection. Phys. Rev. Lett. 102 (22), 225003.Google Scholar
Blackman, E. G. & Field, G. B. 2001 How astrophysical mean field dynamos can circumvent existing quenching constraints. Phys. Plasmas 8 (5), 24072414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackman, E. G. & Ji, H. 2006 Laboratory plasma dynamos, astrophysical dynamos and magnetic helicity evolution. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 369 (4), 18371848.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blandford, R. D. & Payne, D. G. 1982 Hydromagnetic flows from accretion discs and the production of radio jets. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 199, 883903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boffard, J. B., Jung, R. O., Lin, C. C. & Wendt, A. E. 2010 Optical emission measurements of electron energy distributions in low-pressure argon inductively coupled plasmas. Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 19 (6), 065001.Google Scholar
Brandenburg, A. & Sandin, C. 2004 Catastrophic alpha quenching alleviated by helicity flux and shear. Astron. Astrophys. 427, 1321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christensen-Dalsgaard, J. 2002 Helioseismology. Rev. Mod. Phys. 74 (4), 1073.Google Scholar
Coakley, M. M., Roesler, F. L., Reynolds, R. J. & Nossal, S. 1996 Fabry–Perot CCD annular-summing spectroscopy: study and implementation for aeronomy applications. Appl. Opt. 35 (33), 64796493.Google Scholar
Cooper, C. M., Wallace, J., Brookhart, M., Clark, M., Collins, C., Ding, W. X., Flanagan, K., Khalzov, I., Li, Y., Milhone, J., Nornberg, M., Nonn, P., Weisberg, D., Whyte, D. G., Zweibel, E. & Forest, C. B. 2014 The Madison Plasma Dynamo Experiment: a facility for studying laboratory plasma astrophysics. Phys. Plasmas 21, 013505.Google Scholar
Cothran, C. D., Brown, M. R., Gray, T., Schaffer, M. J. & Marklin, G. 2009 Observation of a helical self-organized state in a compact toroidal plasma. Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 (21), 215002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daughton, W. & Roytershteyn, V. 2012 Emerging parameter space map of magnetic reconnection in collisional and kinetic regimes. Space Sci. Rev. 172 (1–4), 271282.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deng, B. H., Brower, D. L., Ding, W. X., Wyman, M. D., Chapman, B. E. & Sarff, J. S. 2006 High-speed three-wave polarimeter–interferometer diagnostic for Madison symmetric torus. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 77 (10), 10F108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deng, C., Brower, D. L., Ding, W. X., Almagri, A. F., Anderson, D. T., Anderson, F. S. B., Gerhardt, S. P., Probert, P. & Talmadge, J. N. 2003 First results from the multichannel interferometer system on HSX. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 74 (3), 16251628.Google Scholar
ud Doula, A., Townsend, R. H. D. & Owocki, S. P. 2006 Centrifugal breakout of magnetically confined line-driven stellar winds. Astrophys. J. Lett. 640 (2), L191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egedal, J., Le, A. & Daughton, W. 2013 A review of pressure anisotropy caused by electron trapping in collisionless plasma, and its implications for magnetic reconnection. Phys. Plasmas 20 (2013), 061201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, U., Pouquet, A., Léorat, J. & Mazure, A. 1975 Possibility of an inverse cascade of magnetic helicity in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. J. Fluid Mech. 68 (4), 769778.Google Scholar
Gallet, B., Aumaître, S., Boisson, J., Daviaud, F., Dubrulle, B., Bonnefoy, N., Bourgoin, M., Odier, P., Pinton, J.-F., Plihon, N., Verhille, G., Fauve, S. & Pétrélis, F. 2012 Experimental observation of spatially localized dynamo magnetic fields. Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 (14), 144501.Google Scholar
Gough, D. O. & McIntyre, M. E. 1998 Inevitability of a magnetic field in the sun’s radiative interior. Nature 394, 755757.Google Scholar
Gray, T., Lukin, V. S., Brown, M. R. & Cothran, C. D. 2010 Three-dimensional reconnection and relaxation of merging spheromak plasmas. Phys. Plasmas 17 (10), 102106.Google Scholar
Hershkowitz, N., Leung, K. N. & Romesser, T. 1975 Plasma leakage through a low- ${\it\beta}$ line cusp. Phys. Rev. Lett. 35, 277.Google Scholar
Hsu, S. C. & Bellan, P. M. 2002 A laboratory plasma experiment for studying magnetic dynamics of accretion discs and jets. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 334 (2), 257261.Google Scholar
Hsu, S. C. & Bellan, P. M. 2003 Experimental identification of the kink instability as a poloidal flux amplification mechanism for coaxial gun spheromak formation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (21), 14.Google Scholar
Hubbard, A. & Brandenburg, A. 2012 Catastrophic quenching in ${\it\alpha}{\it\Omega}$ dynamos revisited. Astrophys. J. 748 (1), 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubble, A. A., Barnat, E. V., Weatherford, B. R. & Foster, J. E. 2014 The electron spatial distribution and leak width in a magnetic cusp. Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 23 (2), 2200122006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hwang, K. J., Goldstein, M. L., Wendel, D. E., Fazakerley, A. N. & Gurgiolo, C. 2013 Cluster observations near reconnection X lines in Earth’s magnetotail current sheet. J. Geophys. Res. 118 (February), 41994209.Google Scholar
Iskakov, A. B., Schekochihin, A. A., Cowley, S. C., McWilliams, J. C. & Proctor, M. R. E. 2007 Numerical demonstration of fluctuation dynamo at low magnetic Prandtl numbers. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2), 208501.Google Scholar
Jarboe, T. R. 2005 The spheromak confinement device. Phys. Plasmas 12 (5), 058103.Google Scholar
Ji, H. 1999 Turbulent dynamos and magnetic helicity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 83 (16), 3198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ji, H. & Daughton, W. 2011 Phase diagram for magnetic reconnection in heliophysical, astrophysical, and laboratory plasmas. Phys. Plasmas 18 (11), 111207.Google Scholar
Käpylä, P. J., Korpi, M. J. & Brandenburg, A. 2010 Open and closed boundaries in large-scale convective dynamos. Astron. Astrophys. 518, A22.Google Scholar
Katz, N., Collins, C., Wallace, J., Clark, M., Weisberg, D., Jara-Almonte, J., Reese, I., Whal, C. & Forest, C. B. 2012 Magnetic bucket for rotating unmagnetized plasma. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 063502.Google Scholar
Khalzov, I. V., Brown, B. P., Cooper, C. M., Weisberg, D. B. & Forest, C. B. 2012a Optimized boundary driven flows for dynamos in a sphere. Phys. Plasmas 19, 112106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khalzov, I. V., Brown, B. P., Kaplan, E. J., Katz, N., Paz-Soldan, C., Rahbarnia, K., Spence, E. J. & Forest, C. B. 2012b Resistive and ferritic-wall plasma dynamos in a sphere. Phys. Plasmas 19 (10), 104501.Google Scholar
Khalzov, I. V., Cooper, C. M. & Forest, C. B. 2013 Fast dynamos in spherical boundary-driven flows. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 (12), 125001.Google Scholar
Kusano, K. 2002 Numerical study of three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic instability in the solar coronal magnetic arcades. Astrophys. J. 571 (1), 532539.Google Scholar
Lathrop, D. P. & Forest, C. B. 2011 Magnetic dynamos in the lab. Phys. Today 64 (7), 4045.Google Scholar
Le, A., Egedal, J., Daughton, W., Roytershteyn, V., Karimabadi, H. & Forest, C. 2015 Transition in electron physics of magnetic reconnection in weakly collisional plasma. J. Plasma Phys. 81, 305810108.Google Scholar
Li, H., Lapenta, G., Finn, J. M., Li, S. & Colgate, S. A. 2006 Modeling the large scale structures of astrophysical jets in the magnetically dominated limit. Astrophys. J. 643 (1), 92100.Google Scholar
Li, H., Lovelace, R. V. E., Finn, J. M. & Colgate, S. A. 2001 Magnetic helix formation driven by Keplerian disk rotation in an external plasma pressure: the initial expansion stage. Astrophys. J. 561 (2), 915923.Google Scholar
Liu, Y., Hoeksema, J. T., Bobra, M., Hayashi, K., Schuck, P. W. & Sun, X. 2014 Magnetic helicity in emerging solar active regions. Astrophys. J. 785 (1), 13.Google Scholar
Lovelace, R. V. E. 1976 Dynamo model of double radio sources. Nature 262, 649652.Google Scholar
Lynden-Bell, D. 2003 On why discs generate magnetic towers and collimate jets. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 341, 13601372.Google Scholar
MacGregor, K. B. & Charbonneau, P. 1999 Angular momentum transport in magnetized stellar radiative zones. IV. Ferraro’s theorem and the solar tachocline. Astrophys. J. 519, 911917.Google Scholar
Malik, S. M., Sridharan, K., Fetherston, R. P., Chen, A. & Conrad, J. R. 1994 Overview of plasma source ion implantation research at University of Wisconsin–Madison. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 12 (2), 843849.Google Scholar
Matt, S. P., Brun, A. S., Baraffe, I., Bouvier, J. & Chabrier, G. 2015 The mass-dependence of angular momentum evolution in sun-like stars. Astrophys. J. Lett. 799, L23 (6pp.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mestel, L. 1968 Magnetic braking by a stellar wind. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 138 (3), 359391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miesch, M. S. & Hindman, B. W. 2011 Gyroscopic pumping in the solar near-surface shear layer. Astrophys. J. 743, 79 (25pp.).Google Scholar
Monchaux, R., Berhanu, M., Aumaître, S., Chiffaudel, A., Daviaud, F., Dubrulle, B., Ravelet, F., Fauve, S., Mordant, N., Pétrélis, F., Bourgoin, M., Odier, P., Pinton, J.-F., Plihon, N. & Volk, R. 2009 The Von Kármán sodium experiment: turbulent dynamical dynamos. Phys. Fluids 21 (3), 035108.Google Scholar
Monchaux, R., Berhanu, M., Bourgoin, M., Moulin, M., Odier, P., Pinton, J.-F., Volk, R., Fauve, S., Mordant, N., Pétrélis, F., Chiffaudel, A., Daviaud, F., Dubrulle, B., Gasquet, C., Marié, L. & Ravelet, F. 2007 Generation of a magnetic field by dynamo action in a turbulent flow of liquid sodium. Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (4), 044502.Google Scholar
Moser, A. L. & Bellan, P. M. 2012 Magnetic reconnection from a multiscale instability cascade. Nature 482 (7385), 379381.Google Scholar
Pevtsov, A. A., Berger, M. A., Nindos, A., Norton, A. A. & van Driel-Gesztelyi, L. 2014 Magnetic helicity, tilt, and twist. Space Sci. Rev. 186 (1), 285324.Google Scholar
Philippov, A. A. & Spitkovsky, A. 2014 Ab initio pulsar magnetosphere: three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of axisymmetric pulsars. Astrophys. J. Lett. 785 (2), L33.Google Scholar
Priest, E. & Forbes, T. 2000 Magnetic Reconnection. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rafikov, R. R. & Kulsrud, R. M. 2000 Magnetic flux expulsion in powerful superbubble explosions and the ${\it\alpha}$ ${\it\Omega}$ dynamo. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 314 (4), 839848.Google Scholar
Raman, R., Jarboe, T. R., Nelson, B. A., Izzo, V. A., O’Neill, R. G., Redd, A. J. & Smith, R. J. 2003 Demonstration of plasma startup by coaxial helicity injection. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (7), 075005.Google Scholar
Raman, R., Mueller, D., Nelson, B. A., Jarboe, T. R., Gerhardt, S., Kugel, H. W., LeBlanc, B., Maingi, R., Menard, J., Ono, M., Paul, S., Roquemore, L., Sabbagh, S., Soukhanovskii, V.& NSTX Research Team 2010 Demonstration of tokamak ohmic flux saving by transient coaxial helicity injection in the national spherical torus experiment. Phys. Rev. Lett. 104 (9), 095003.Google Scholar
Rust, D. M. 2002 Helicity build-up and the role of CMEs. In American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #200, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, vol. 34, p. 751; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AAS...200.6503R.Google Scholar
Schekochihin, A. A., Cowley, S. C., Taylor, S. F., Maron, J. L. & McWilliams, J. C. 2004 Simulations of small-scale turbulent dynamo. Astrophys. J. 612, 276.Google Scholar
Schmitz, O., Beigman, I. L., Vainshtein, L. A., Schweer, B., Kantor, M., Pospieszczyk, A., Xu, Y., Krychowiak, M., Lehnen, M., Samm, U., Unterberg, B.& the TEXTOR team 2008 Status of electron temperature and density measurement with beam emission spectroscopy on thermal helium at textor. Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 50 (11), 115004.Google Scholar
Sengupta, A. 2009 Magnetic confinement in a ring-cusp ion thruster discharge plasma. J. Appl. Phys. 105 (9), 093303.Google Scholar
Spence, E., Reuter, K. & Forest, C. B. 2009 Numerical simulations of a spherical plasma dynamo experiment. Astrophys. J. 700, 470478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiegel, E. A. & Zahn, J.-P. 1992 The solar tachocline. Astron. Astrophys. 265, 106114.Google Scholar
Spitkovsky, A. 2006 Time-dependent force-free pulsar magnetospheres: axisymmetric and oblique rotators. Astrophys. J. Lett. 648 (1), L51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spruit, H. C. 2010 Theory of magnetically powered jets. In The Jet Paradigm (ed. Belloni, T.), pp. 233263. Springer.Google Scholar
Stirling, W. L., Ryan, P. M., Tsai, C. C. & Leung, K. N. 1979 Magnetic multipole line-cusp plasma generator for neutral beam injectors. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 50 (1), 102108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Taylor, J. B. 1986 Relaxation and magnetic reconnection in plasmas. Rev. Mod. Phys. 58 (3), 741.Google Scholar
Thompson, M. J.2014 Solar physics: surface waves and helioseismology. http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/internal_rotation_mjt.jpg.Google Scholar
Thompson, M. J., Christensen-Dalsgaard, J., Miesch, M. S. & Toomre, J. 2003 The internal rotation of the Sun. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 41, 599643.Google Scholar
Townsend, R. H. D., Rivinius, T., Rowe, J. F., Moffat, A. F. J., Matthews, J. M., Bohlender, D., Neiner, C., Telting, J. H., Guenther, D. B., Kallinger, T., Kuschnig, R., Rucinski, S. M., Sasselov, D. & Weiss, W. W. 2013 MOST observations of Ori E: challenging the centrifugal breakout narrative. Astrophys. J. 769 (1), 33.Google Scholar
Vishniac, E. T. & Cho, J. 2001 Magnetic helicity conservation and astrophysical dynamos. Astrophys. J. 550 (2), 752760.Google Scholar
Wang, S., Wendt, A. E., Boffard, J. B., Lin, C. C., Radovanov, S. & Persing, H. 2013 Noninvasive, real-time measurements of plasma parameters via optical emission spectroscopy. J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 31 (2), 021303.Google Scholar