Generation of spherical laser-plasma clouds for modelling three-dimensional dynamic effects of artificial plasma injections in circumterrestrial space

Abstract

Abstract For the first time to solve the problems of laboratory modelling of cosmophysical phenomena of an explosive nature (active experiments of the AMPTE type, with barium injections into the magnetosphere), spherical laser plasma clouds (LPCs) were produced and applied (in experiments at the KI-1 test facility of the ILP SB RAS). Use was made of the classical four-beam scheme of irradiation (regular tetrahedron) of a polyethylene target ball (∅1 cm) by CO2 laser radiation with an energy of up to 500 J. A high degree of symmetry of the expansion of a near-spherical LPC with a moderate velocity of ∼100 km s−1 and an energy of up to 30 J has been achieved. The regimes of deceleration and formation of the spherical-LPC diamagnetic cavity were modelled for the first time, as well as the development of flute instability during the expansion of barium clouds across the geomagnetic field and the dynamics of these clouds along the field.