Overview of Experiments from the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory

The Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory (WiPPL) is a multi-machine, collaborative research facility directed toward fundamental topics in discovery plasma science: dynamos, reconnection, turbulence, particle acceleration, coherent structures, and plasma systems. A large fraction of the run time is for users from outside WiPPL who lead experimental projects on basic, astrophysical, and fusion plasma studies. We present an overview of WiPPL capabilities, recent and ongoing WiPPL-led projects, and key results to date. On the Big Red Ball (BRB) collisionless reconnection is studied with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution; parallel and perpendicular shock formation are studied using pulsed power in a theta pinch and with CT injection; enormous magnetic field amplification is observed in high beta Hall dominated Couette flow, and a novel instability driven by differentially rotating electrons has been observed. New capabilities in the near term will use a rotating dipole to emulate a pulsar wind system in the lab and a planar spheromak injector is being installed to mimic the system of a galactic jet expanding into intergalactic medium. On the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST), tokamak plasmas are routinely operated for a variety of studies: the spatial structure and time dynamics of runaway electron generation are measured with; whistler frequency range waves correlated with runaway electrons have been observed, and the self-organization of low q tokamaks is measured directly using probes.  RFP plasmas in MST are used for studies of plasma self-organization , with programmable power supplies expanding the Lundquist-number overlap with nonlinear MHD simulations.