Driven-Turbulence Simulations of High-Energy-Density Plasmas

The magnitude of magnetic fields in the observable universe leads to questions regarding the physical processes that can grow and maintain them. One leading theory is fluctuation dynamo, which can amplify seed magnetic fields in a turbulent plasma to the point where the magnetic energy becomes an appreciable fraction of the available turbulent kinetic energy. Since the seminal numerical demonstration of fluctuation dynamo by Meneguzzi et al.,1 several numerical studies have pushed simulations codes and leveraged high-performance computing resources to explore fluctuation dynamo in magnetized turbulence at different regimes (for a recent review see Rincon2), although limited in the resistive magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) ansatz. Inspired by the recent experimental demonstrations of fluctuation dynamo by the turbulent dynamo (TDYNO)collaboration3,4 via laser-driven, high-energy-density (HED) experiments at the Omega Laser Facility at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics, we present a series of 3-D FLASH simulations of driven turbulence that aim to study HED turbulence in regimes where plasma physics processes are important and extend beyond the one-temperature resistive-MHD ansatz broadly employed in existing theoretical and numerical models. The effort leverages FLASH's new extended MHD and HED physics capabilities and will furnish the theoretical foundations for future TDYNO experiments.