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Wong, A. Y.

Publications and source records attributed to Wong, A. Y..

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

Trapping of intense light in hollow shell

A small hollow shell for trapping laser light is proposed. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation shows that under appropriate laser and plasma conditions a part of the radiation fields of an intense short laser pulse can enter the cavity of a small shell through an over-critical density plasma in an adjacent guide channel and become trapped. The trapped light evolves into a circulating radial wave pattern until its energy is dissipated.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

High-energy-density electron jet generation from an opening gold cone filled with near-critical-density plasma

By using two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, we propose a scheme for strong coupling of a petawatt laser with an opening gold cone filled with near-critical-density plasmas. When relevant parameters are properly chosen, most laser energy can be fully deposited inside the cone with only 10% leaving the tip opening. Due to the asymmetric ponderomotive acceleration by the strongly decayed laser pulse, high-energy-density electrons with net laser energy gain are accumulated inside the cone, which then stream out of the tip opening continuously, like a jet. The jet electrons are fully relativistic, with speeds around 0.98−0.998 c and densities at 10{sup 20}/cm{sup 3} level. The jet can keep for a long time over 200 fs, which may have diverse applications in practice.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Target normal sheath acceleration of foil ions by laser-trapped hot electrons from a long subcritical-density preplasma

In a long subcritical density plasma, an ultrashort ultraintense laser pulse can self-organize into a fast but sub-relativistic propagating structure consisting of the modulated laser light and a large number of trapped electrons from the plasma. Upon impact of the structure with a solid foil target placed in the latter, the remaining laser light is reflected, but the dense and hot trapped electrons pass through the foil, together with the impact-generated target-frontsurface electrons to form a dense hot electron cloud at the back of the target suitable for enhancing target normal sheath acceleration of the target-backsurface ions. The accelerated ions are well collimated and of high charge and energy densities, with peak energies a full order of magnitude higher than that from target normal sheath acceleration without the subcritical density plasma. In the latter case, the space-charge field accelerating the ions is limited since they are formed only by the target-frontsurface electrons during the very short instant of laser reflection.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS1973

Turbulence in electrostatic ion-acoustic shocks

Three types of collisionless electrostatic ion-acoustic shocks are investigated using the University of California, Los Angeles, double plasma device: (1) laminar shocks; (2) small amplitude turbulent shocks in which the turbulence is confined to be upstream of the shock potential jump; and (3) large amplitude turbulent shocks in which the wave turbulence occurs throughout the shock transition. The wave turbulence is generated by ions which are reflected from the shock potential; linear theory spatial growth increments agree with experimental values. The experimental relationship between the shock Mach number and the shock potential is shown to be inconsistent with theoretical shock models which assume that the electrons are isothermal. Theoretical calculations which assume a trapped electron equation of a state and a turbulently flattened velocity distribution function for the reflected ions yields a Mach number vs potential relationship in agreement with experiment.

Means, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS1973

Turbulence in electrostatic ion acoustic shocks

Three types of collisionless electrostatic ion acoustic shocks are investigated using a double plasma (DP) device: (1) laminar shocks; (2) small amplitude turbulent shocks in which the turbulence is confined to be upstream of the shock potential jump; and (3) large amplitude turbulent shocks in which the wave turbulence occurs throughout the shock transition. The wave turbulence is generated by ions which are reflected from the shock potential; linear theory spatial growth increments agree with experimental values. The experimental relationship between the shock Mach number and the shock potential is shown to be inconsistent with theoretical shock models which assume that the electrons are isothermal. Theoretical calculations which assume a trapped electron equation of a state and a turbulently flattened velocity distrubution function for the reflected ions yields a Mach number vs potential relationship in agreement with experiment.

Means, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS1971

Turbulent resistivity, diffusion and heating

Experimental and theoretical studies are reported on ion acoustic and ion cyclotron turbulence and their roles in anomalous resistivity, viscosity, diffusion and heating and in the structure of collisionless electrostatic shocks. Resistance due to ion acoustic turbulence has been observed in experiments with a streaming cesium plasma in which electron current, potential rise due to turbulent resistivity, spectrum of unstable ion acoustic waves, and associated electron heating were all measured directly. Kinetic theory calculations for an expanding, unstable plasma, give results in agreement with the experiment. In a strong magnetic field, with T sub e/T sub i approximately 1 and current densities typical for present Tokomaks, the plasma is stable to ion acoustic but unstable to current driven electrostatic ion cyclotron waves. Relevant characteristics of these waves are calculated and it is shown that for ion, beta greater than m sub e/m sub i, the electromagnetic ion cyclotron wave has a lower instability threshold than the electrostatic one. However, when ion acoustic turbulence is present experiments with double plasma devices show rapid anomalous heating of an ion beam streaming through a plasma.

Fried, B. D.↗