Kil-Byoung Chai

FORMATION AND ALIGNMENT OF ELONGATED, FRACTAL-LIKE WATER-ICE GRAINS IN EXTREMELY COLD, WEAKLY IONIZED PLASMA

Elongated, fractal-like water-ice grains are observed to form spontaneously when water vapor is injected into a weakly ionized laboratory plasma formed in a background gas cooled to an astrophysically relevant temperature. The water-ice grains form in 1–2 minutes, levitate with regular spacing, and are aligned parallel to the sheath electric field. Water-ice grains formed in plasma where the neutrals and ions have low mass, such as hydrogen and helium, are larger, more elongated, and more fractal-like than water-ice grains formed in plasmas where the neutrals and ions have high mass such as argon and krypton. Typical aspect ratios (length to width ratio) are as great as 5 while typical fractal dimensions are ~1.7. Water-ice grain lengths in plasmas with low neutral and ion masses can be several hundred microns long. Infrared absorption spectroscopy reveals that the water-ice grains are crystalline and so are similar in constitution to the water-ice grains in protoplanetary disks, Saturns rings, and mesospheric clouds. The properties and behavior of these laboratory water-ice grains may provide insights into morphology and alignment behavior of water-ice grains in astrophysical dusty plasmas.

Spontaneous formation of nonspherical water ice grains in a plasma environment

Saturns rings, terrestrial polar mesospheric clouds, and astrophysical molecular clouds are all dusty plasma environments where tiny grains of water ice are an important constituent. Existing models typically assume that the ice grains are spherical and then invoke various arguments about the normal distribution or the power law dependence of grain number density on grain radius. Using a laboratory plasma in which water ice grains spontaneously form, we investigated the validity of the traditional assumption that these grains are spherical. We found that in certain cases at low ambient pressures, water ice grains in the laboratory dusty plasma are not spherical but instead are highly elongated, i.e., ellipsoidal. Preliminary analysis suggests that electrical forces associated with the dusty plasma environment are responsible for the nonspherical shape.

Extreme ultra-violet burst, particle heating, and whistler wave emission in fast magnetic reconnection induced by kink-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability

A spatially localized energetic extreme ultra-violet (EUV) burst is imaged at the presumed position of fast magnetic reconnection in a plasma jet produced by a coaxial helicity injection source; this EUV burst indicates strong localized electron heating. A circularly polarized high frequency magnetic field perturbation is simultaneously observed at some distance from the reconnection region indicating that the reconnection emits whistler waves and that Hall dynamics likely governs the reconnection. Spectroscopic measurement shows simultaneous fast ion heating. The electron heating is consistent with Ohmic dissipation, while the ion heating is consistent with ion trajectories becoming stochastic.

Extreme ultra-violet movie camera for imaging microsecond time scale magnetic reconnection

An ultra-fast extreme ultra-violet (EUV) movie camera has been developed for imaging magnetic reconnection in the Caltech spheromak/astrophysical jet experiment. The camera consists of a broadband Mo:Si multilayer mirror, a fast decaying YAG:Ce scintillator, a visible light block, and a high-speed visible light CCD camera. The camera can capture EUV images as fast as 3.3 × 10(6) frames per second with 0.5 cm spatial resolution. The spectral range is from 20 eV to 60 eV. EUV images reveal strong, transient, highly localized bursts of EUV radiation when magnetic reconnection occurs.

Complex astrophysical experiments relating to jets, solar loops, and water ice dusty plasma

Recent results of three astrophysically relevant experiments at Caltech are summarized. In the first experiment magnetohydrodynamically driven plasma jets simulate astrophysical jets that undergo a kink instability. Lateral acceleration of the kinking jet spawns a Rayleigh–Taylor instability, which in turn spawns a magnetic reconnection. Particle heating and a burst of waves are observed in association with the reconnection. The second experiment uses a slightly different setup to produce an expanding arched plasma loop which is similar to a solar corona loop. It is shown that the plasma in this loop results from jets originating from the electrodes. The possibility of a transition from slow to fast expansion as a result of the expanding loop breaking free of an externally imposed strapping magnetic field is investigated. The third and completely different experiment creates a weakly ionized plasma with liquid nitrogen cooled electrodes. Water vapour injected into this plasma forms water ice grains that in general are ellipsoidal and not spheroidal. The water ice grains can become quite long (up to several hundred microns) and self-organize so that they are evenly spaced and vertically aligned.