Plasma physics articles within Nature Communications

Featured

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasma created in laboratory are useful to understand the properties of atmospheric and space plasma. Here the authors report a laboratory plasma experiment in a dipole magnetic field to show the excitation of chirping whistler waves, i.e. chorus emission.

    • Haruhiko Saitoh
    • , Masaki Nishiura
    •  & Zensho Yoshida

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Error fields in tokamak appear due to the imperfections and misalignment of the coils generating magnetic field. Here the authors demonstrate use of error field correction to control the plasma transport and instabilities in a tokamak - KSTAR.

    • SeongMoo Yang
    • , Jong-Kyu Park
    •  & Won-Ha Ko

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Both particle and wave energy exist in plasma and energy transfer leads to many interesting phenomena like turbulence, particle acceleration. Here the authors show electron-scale coherent structure resulting from energy transfer in magnetosheath using a model and data from Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission.

    • Zi-Kang Xie
    • , Qiu-Gang Zong
    •  & Per-Arne Lindqvist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A fundamental feature of planetary magnetospheres is internal convection induced by surrounding solar wind. Here, authors offer insights into the interplay among solar wind, magnetosphere, and ionosphere, and evidence a dayside-driven convection pattern linked to magnetic-field-aligned currents.

    • Lei Dai
    • , Minghui Zhu
    •  & Graziella Branduardi-Raymont

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Jets have been found in Earth’s magnetosheath for two decades and, more recently, also in Mars. Yet, their universal existence in planetary magnetosheath remains an open question. Here, authors report the presence of anti-sunward and sunward jets at Jupiter and compare them to Earth and Mars.

    • Yufei Zhou
    • , Savvas Raptis
    •  & Lan Ma

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How and via which mechanism the energy transfers between scales in imbalanced Alfvénic turbulence is an open question. Here, the authors show that the energy transfer of imbalanced Alfvénic turbulence is completed by coherent interactions between Alfvén waves and co-propagating anomalous fluctuations.

    • Liping Yang
    • , Jiansen He
    •  & Ziqi Wu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Plasmas have different properties at the boundaries as compared to the bulk which has important implications for applications. Here, the authors study charge decay in a spatial afterglow by both experimental diagnostics and modeling to reveal a transition from ambipolar to free diffusion.

    • Nabiel H. Abuyazid
    • , Necip B. Üner
    •  & R. Mohan Sankaran

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Accelerated electron beams are potentially useful for imaging and different type of light sources. Here the authors demonstrate electron acceleration using metallic laser acceleration with efficiency comparable to that of dielectric laser accelerators.

    • Dingguo Zheng
    • , Siyuan Huang
    •  & Jianqi Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In laser-driven inertial fusion, finding optimal driving pressure is a major challenge. Here, the authors use a 100 kJ SG laser and a hybrid-drive scheme to demonstrate such driving pressure with the help of the direct-drive laser such that the indirect-drive radiation ablation pressure is turned into a well-smoothed hybrid-drive pressure much greater than the radiation ablation pressure.

    • Ji Yan
    • , Jiwei Li
    •  & Shaoping Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intense laser interaction with matter creates plasma which can act as a nonlinear optical medium. Here the authors demonstrate plasma as a refractive optics for relativistic intensity radiation, evident by the acceleration of multiple electron beams from a single laser pulse passing through the plasma.

    • Omri Seemann
    • , Yang Wan
    •  & Victor Malka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Controlling audible sound requires inherently broadband and subwavelength acoustic solutions. Exploiting the unique physics of plasmacoustic metalayers, we experimentally demonstrate versatile and tunable sound control over a wide frequency range.

    • Stanislav Sergeev
    • , Romain Fleury
    •  & Hervé Lissek

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Free-electron lasers (FELs) can produce bright X-ray pulses, but require high quality electron beams. Here the authors show how to generate and preserve ultrabright electron beams from plasma-based accelerators for ultra-compact, high-brightness X-ray FELs.

    • A. F. Habib
    • , G. G. Manahan
    •  & B. Hidding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The fusion reaction involving proton (p) and boron (11B) has unique advantages over deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion in terms of number of neutrons generated and availability of the fuel components. Here the authors demonstrate the (p,11B) fusion reaction in a magnetically confined plasma at the Large Helical Device.

    • R. M. Magee
    • , K. Ogawa
    •  & M. Osakabe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetized plasmas display continuous spectra of current-sheet equilibria. How they select a particular equilibrium is not well understood. Now, equilibrium selection in magnetized plasmas is studied by analytical theory, particle-in-cell simulations and spacecraft observations, highlighting the role of current-sheet relaxation processes.

    • Young Dae Yoon
    • , Deirdre E. Wendel
    •  & Gunsu S. Yun

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Existing methods for temperature estimation of warm dense matter rely on model calculations. Here the authors report a method to extract the temperature of complex materials that is previously only inferred by using model calculations.

    • Tobias Dornheim
    • , Maximilian Böhme
    •  & Jan Vorberger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) are frequently detected in solar and stellar flares, but the underlying physical mechanisms are still to be ascertained. Here, the authors show microwave QPPs during a solar flare originating from quasi-periodic magnetic reconnection at the flare current sheet.

    • Yuankun Kou
    • , Xin Cheng
    •  & Mingde Ding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Atoms and molecules under extreme temperature and pressure can be investigated using dense plasmas achieved by laser-driven implosion. Here the authors report spectral change of copper in billions atmosphere pressure that can only be explained by a self-consistent approach.

    • S. X. Hu
    • , David T. Bishel
    •  & Timothy Walton

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fusion devices like tokamaks require plasma current to generate magnetic field for plasma confinement. Here the authors report an observation of a self-generated anomalous current that contributes up to 30% of the total current in the fusion plasma at KSTAR.

    • Yong-Su Na
    • , Jaemin Seo
    •  & Taik Soo Hahm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is known that cosmic rays could be accelerated by shock waves in supernova (SN) remnants. Here, the authors show that SN 1006 remnant is an efficient source of cosmic rays, providing observational support for the quasi-parallel acceleration mechanism.

    • Roberta Giuffrida
    • , Marco Miceli
    •  & Giovanni Peres

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetohydrodynamic instabilities are related to different characteristics and behavior of fluids. Here the authors report an experiment and simulation combined study of a global non-axisymmetric MHD instability that exists at sufficiently large rotation rates and intermediate magnetic field strengths.

    • Yin Wang
    • , Erik P. Gilson
    •  & Hantao Ji

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Confining plasma for fusion requires controlling many parameters. Here the authors report the existence of a narrow parameter space for the simultaneous confinement of energetic alpha particles and removal of slowed-down helium ash in a magnetically confined fusion plasma by using kinetic-magnetohydrodynamic hybrid simulations.

    • A. Bierwage
    • , K. Shinohara
    •  & S. Ide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the transport of the particles and fuel in the fusion plasma is fundamentally important. Here the authors report a cross-link interaction between electron- and ion-scale turbulences in plasma in terms of trapped electron mode and electron temperature gradient modes and their implication to fusion plasma.

    • Shinya Maeyama
    • , Tomo-Hiko Watanabe
    •  & Akihiro Ishizawa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is suggested that waves can provide both diffusion and resistivity that can potentially support the reconnection electric field in low-density astrophysical plasmas. Here, the authors show, using direct spacecraft measurements, that the waves contribute to anomalous diffusion but do not contribute to the reconnection electric field.

    • D. B. Graham
    • , Yu. V. Khotyaintsev
    •  & K. Dokgo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Charged particle interaction and energy dissipation in plasma is fundamentally interesting. Here the authors study proton stopping in laser-produced plasma for the moderate to strong coupling with electrons.

    • S. Malko
    • , W. Cayzac
    •  & L. Volpe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    When a plasma interacts with a surface, different thermal effects may arise. Here, the authors explore plasma interactions with a surface that produce a surface cooling effect.

    • John A. Tomko
    • , Michael J. Johnson
    •  & Patrick E. Hopkins

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Several mechanisms exist for formation of jets observed in Earth’s magnetosheath. Here, the authors show evidence of high-speed downstream flows generated at the Earth’s bow shock as a direct consequence of shock reformation, which is different than the proposed mechanisms.

    • Savvas Raptis
    • , Tomas Karlsson
    •  & Per-Arne Lindqvist

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most plasmas are created in a nonequilibrium state and understanding the non-trivial pathway to equilibrium is critical for predicting their time-evolving properties. Here the authors discuss the ion-ion temperature relaxation in a dual-species ultracold neutral plasma.

    • R. Tucker Sprenkle
    • , L. G. Silvestri
    •  & S. D. Bergeson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Experimental measurements involving multiple laser and plasma parameters are useful in understanding the relativistic laser-plasma interactions. Here the authors extend the model of holeboring for arbitrary profiles of laser pulse and plasma scale lengths.

    • J. Hornung
    • , Y. Zobus
    •  & V. Bagnoud

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Nonlinear wave mixing has been explored in space plasma. Here the authors report beat-wave Brillouin scattering experiment at EISCAT, in which two radio waves at different transmitted frequencies are driving ion acoustic waves in the ionosphere, leading to stimulated Brillouin emissions escaping the plasma.

    • B. Eliasson
    • , A. Senior
    •  & R. Bingham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The magnetopause surface waves (SW) that drive global plasma dynamics are thought, like waves on water, to travel with the driving solar wind. Here, the authors show that impulsively-excited SW, with standing structure along the geomagnetic field, are stationary by propagating against this flow.

    • M. O. Archer
    • , M. D. Hartinger
    •  & L. Rastaetter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Magnetized plasma can be regarded as topological matter. Here the authors identify a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of topological edge mode and find that cold magnetized plasma has ten topological phases in the plasma frequency, cyclotron frequency and wave-vector space.

    • Yichen Fu
    •  & Hong Qin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It was predicted that Alfvén waves can account for the acceleration of precipitating auroral electrons. Here, the authors show laboratory measurements of the resonant transfer of energy from Alfvén waves to electrons under conditions relevant to the auroral zone as a direct test.

    • J. W. R. Schroeder
    • , G. G. Howes
    •  & S. Dorfman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Turbulence effects explored use macroscale systems in general. Here the authors generate a turbulent plasma using laser irradiation of a solid target and study the dynamics of the plasma flow at the micron-scale by using scattering of an XFEL beam.

    • G. Rigon
    • , B. Albertazzi
    •  & M. Koenig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The electrical conductivity is critical to understand warm dense matter, but the accurate measurement is extremely challenging. Here the authors use multi-cycle THz pulses to measure the conductivity of gold foils strongly heated by free-electron laser, determining the individual contributions of electron-electron and electron-ion scattering.

    • Z. Chen
    • , C. B. Curry
    •  & S. H. Glenzer

Browse broader subjects

Browse narrower subjects

Browse Plasma physics across other nature.com journals