Magnetization of a Dense Plasma via Laser Beat Waves

We present results from experiments at the Jupiter Laser Facility (JLF) at LLNL to demonstrate laser beat-wave magnetization of a dense plasma. A beat wave is created between two lasers that will resonantly accelerate thermal electrons which can drive electrical current and embed a magnetic field. The experiment uses Janus 1ω (1053 nm) beam and an Nd:YAG (1064 nm) to drive the beat wave, and the Janus 2ω (526.5 nm) beam to ionize a gas-jet target as well as provide Thomson-scattering (TS) measurements of the target density/temperature and scattered light from the beat wave. TS data captured electron-plasma-wave and ion-acoustic-wave features utilizing N, He, H, and D gas jets. Electron densities range from 1E17 to 1E19 cm-3 with temperatures of tens to hundreds of eV. Interestingly, the formation of a discrete two-density plasma by overlapping the 1ω and 2ω laser beams was observed. This channeling effect forms a plasma density near the desired range for magnetic field generation. We will present results observing a beat wave via TS measurements and compare these results with Chicago PIC simulations.