The Study of Multiscale Coupling in Turbulent High Energy Density Plasmas

To better understand plasma turbulence in various astrophysical systems, we can use high energy density plasmas produced in the laboratory. However, not all methods that produce turbulence experimentally are equal. In most cases, turbulence is generated by injecting kinetic energy at the macroscopic scale, which produces large shear flows, suppressing turbulence. Beginning with two identical setups with density on the order of , velocity on the order of , and temperature around 50 eV, we will study how energy cascades in both setups, with one mostly free of shear. In one setup, energy will be injected in the form of ohmic heating using a pulsed power machine, and the other setup will have energy injected in the form of kinetic energy using laser ablation. The goal in having identical setups with different energy sources is to generate collimated plasma jets, to ultimately compare multiscale turbulence measurements with a large scale magnetic field from a pulsed power driver versus a laser driven setup. In having plasma jets with the only the difference between them being flow shear, this work will study how shear impacts the energy cascade all the way down to the viscous scale.