Experiment on Converging Hemispherical Electrostatic Shocks

Converging shocks in elastic-plastic solids.

We present an approximate description of the behavior of an elastic-plastic material processed by a cylindrically or spherically symmetric converging shock, following Whitham's shock dynamics theory. Originally applied with success to various gas dynamics problems, this theory is presently derived for solid media, in both elastic and plastic regimes. The exact solutions of the shock dynamics eq...

Converging cylindrical shocks in ideal magnetohydrodynamics

High pressure Hugoniot measurements using converging shocks

Plate impact experiments are a powerful tool in equation of state development, but are inherently limited by the range of impact velocities accessible to the facility. In an effort to dramatically increase the range of pressures which can be studied with available impact velocities, a new experimental technique is examined. The target plate is replaced by a composite assembly consisting of two ...

Ultrafast collisional ion heating by electrostatic shocks

High-intensity lasers can be used to generate shockwaves, which have found applications in nuclear fusion, proton imaging, cancer therapies and materials science. Collisionless electrostatic shocks are one type of shockwave widely studied for applications involving ion acceleration. Here we show a novel mechanism for collisionless electrostatic shocks to heat small amounts of solid density matt...

Electrostatic Potentials in Supernova Remnant Shocks

Recent advances in the understanding of the properties of supernova remnant shocks have been precipitated by the Chandra and XMM X-ray Observatories, and the HESS Atmospheric Čerenkov Telescope in the TeV band. A critical problem for this field is the understanding of the relative degree of dissipative heating/energization of electrons and ions in the shock layer. This impacts the interpretatio...