Investigation of Wave Structures in Laser-Driven Ion-Scale Magnetospheres on the Large Plasma Device

Ion-scale magnetospheres form when flowing plasma interacts with a magnetic obstacle on the order of the ion inertial length, and have been observed in systems such as magnetized asteroids, comets, and regions of the Moon. Recent experiments have studied the formation of ion-scale magnetospheres using the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) at the University of California, Los Angeles, with the goal of understanding the kinetic scale physics of collisionless plasmas and to help validate existing models of global magnetospheres. In the experiments, high-repetition-rate lasers drive a plasma into a dipolar magnetic field embedded in a uniform background magnetic field in a magnetic reconnection configuration. In this work, we investigate the wave-like features that were observed in the electric field data during the experiments on the LAPD. We identify candidate waves and explore what the presence of these waves tells us about the kinetic physics occurring in such ion-scale magnetospheres. Taking advantage of the high-repetition-rate experiments, both 2D and 3D datasets are used to provide a detailed picture of the dynamic magnetosphere.