Simulation of the “Central Engine” of Astrophysical Jets within the Plasma Focus Facility

Abstract

Laboratory plasma ejections within the plasma focus facilities (the structure of their electric currents, rotation, shock wave arising from interaction with the ambient medium) reproduce all the main elements of jets from young stars. On the other hand, the physical processes responsible for the launch of a plasma ejection are still not well understood, and therefore there is still no unequivocal answer to the question of how adequately the laboratory experiment reproduces the mechanism of astrophysical jet formation. In this paper, we formulated the conditions under which the similarity of physical processes can also take place in the “central engine” of a laboratory experiment leading to the launch of a plasma ejection, based on the analysis of the effects of nonideal magnetohydrodynamics.