'This page contains images from Dr. Oleg Batishchev research

Advanced Numerical Simulation and Experiment

a) Adaptive Hybrid Kinetic Code (Adaptive Grid, Particle-Continuum Hybrid, Relativistic Vlasov-Maxwell System)

Benchmarking

• Plasma mirror effect
• Interaction of focused ultra-short laser pulses
• Chart of potential energy and Poynting vector conservation
• Plasma mirror effect with a spherical target
• Plots of potential and kinetic energies for 2 pulses + target system

Moving Adaptive Mesh (RRC method)

• Mesh adapts to laser pulses
• Mesh adapts to pulses and target shape
• Mesh follows density of two colliding spheres
• Evolution of density of two colliding spheres

Ultrafast Laser Pulse - Cluster Interaction


• Large cluster ablation (ions)
• Large cluster ablation (electrons)
• Coulomb explosion
• CUOS Hercules intensity (electrons)
• CUOS Hercules intensity (ions)

Adaptive RRC method for multi-scale

• Multi x-scale

Ultrafast Laser Pulse - Foil Interaction (preionized)


• Short intense pulse interaction with thin dense foil
• Intense pulse interaction with medium-density foil
• Shock waves in a thick foil
• CUOS Hercules experiment** simulation (electrons)
• CUOS Hercules experiment simulation (ions)

Ultrafast Laser Pulse - Neutral Foil Interaction (Relativistic Boltzmann-Maxwell System)

Low intensity - overdense target

• A crater is formed on the target surface
• A plasma layer is formed
• Pulse is reflected back by the plasma it created

High intensity - underdense target

• A hole is drilled in the target
• A plasma column is created
• Pulse propagates through the plasma column

b) Molecular Dynamics Simulation (Fast N log N Tree-Code, parallel)

Benchmarking

• Plasma (near-ideal) oscillations, 24Mb
• Charts of potential, kinetic and total energy evolution in the system
• Ion Core Expansion, 28Mb

Ultrafast Laser Pulse - Droplet Interaction (non-ideal system)

• MD modeling of a single Fe cluster ablation (e & i are shown), 12Mb
• MD modeling of two Fe clusters ablation (e & i are shown), 17Mb
• MD modeling of two smaller Fe clusters (only electons shown), 11Mb

c) FFT code for collisionless systems with B-field (fast & simple)

Anomalous transport

Space tethers, plasma probes (moving & biased)

d) Arbitrary 3D geometry simulation code

Magnetic shield against GeV Cosmic Rays

3D adaptive RRC mesh and EM-solvers

e) Non-linear Fokker-Planck code for Coulomb collisions

Maxwellization with 100M PIC particles compared to 100 points in Fokker-Planck (6 orders gain)

High-fidelity EDF. Four-temperature e-i relaxation over 5 orders of time scale

f) Collisional gas flow (non-Monte-Carlo, Boltzmann integral)

Internal and external rarified gas flows

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Experiment

*** MIT News Plasma Rocket article

High-resolution UV-VIS-IR spectroscopy

750mm spectrometer, 3600g/mm grating, 4.65um pixel imaging CCD



Better than 0.01A/pixel resolution: measured ~0.1A Doppler and isotopic shifts

Coke Plasma Rocket


• Movie: Running Coke Plasma Rocket

Essential elements: a) Coca-Cola bottle with cap & b) Coca-Cola can**

**both emptied before the experiment



Also required: vaccum chamber ... and a smart Coke user**



**Dan Stiurca's (Summer'08 UROP) contribution is acknowledged

++ Coke Plasma Rocket is a derivative from the Helicon Thruster Project

RF-Driven Helicon Thruster

Electromagnet version (mHTX)

2005 - first working configuration of mHTX



Special thanks to Justin Pucci (MS in AA, May'07) and Nareg Sinenian (MS in NSE/EE, January'08)

2005-2006 - 2nd design, "blue Ar" helicon mode achieved


• Movie: B-field scan - from weak inductively coupled plasma to strong "blue argon" helicon mode

2006 - 3rd design, single-magnet operation, braided (Ar) and flat (N) antennae


• Movie: Operation with nitrogen propellant

2007 - 4th design with compact high-I magnets (Ar)


• Movie: B-field is ramped-up quickly to 1500G

2007-2008 - 5th design with single magnet (N)



2008 - 6th sub-compact design



Permanent magnet version (MIT)

2008 - first configuration of MIT with Nd magnets



Operation with argon propellant

**Collaborations with Center for Ultrafast Optical Science and Delta Search Labs Inc. are acknowledged