Plasma Physics Colloquium
Friday,
November 16, 2018
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
"Charge Exchange in High Altitude Nuclear Explosions"
In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union detonated high altitude nuclear explosions (HANEs) in Earth's upper ionosphere and exosphere. Unlike atmospheric nuclear fireballs or underground events, they are magnetized and mostly Coulomb-collisionless plasmas that expand and bounce in the earth's magnetosphere. They produce many significant plasma phenomena (such as belt pumping) whose processes are still not well understood. One of the best known HANEs was Starfish Prime, detonated 400 km over Johnston Island in 1962. In this presentation, I describe a Starfish Prime like HANE where I incorporate neutral-ion collisional physics. I demonstrate the qualitative differences of the prompt HANE plasma dynamics from simulations where one does not include neutral-ion collisions. I end with a summary discussion of the particle in cell code used to simulate these HANEs and summarize the algorithm used to approximate the physics of ion-neutral collisions.
Host: Andrew Cole
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
"Charge Exchange in High Altitude Nuclear Explosions"
In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union detonated high altitude nuclear explosions (HANEs) in Earth's upper ionosphere and exosphere. Unlike atmospheric nuclear fireballs or underground events, they are magnetized and mostly Coulomb-collisionless plasmas that expand and bounce in the earth's magnetosphere. They produce many significant plasma phenomena (such as belt pumping) whose processes are still not well understood. One of the best known HANEs was Starfish Prime, detonated 400 km over Johnston Island in 1962. In this presentation, I describe a Starfish Prime like HANE where I incorporate neutral-ion collisional physics. I demonstrate the qualitative differences of the prompt HANE plasma dynamics from simulations where one does not include neutral-ion collisions. I end with a summary discussion of the particle in cell code used to simulate these HANEs and summarize the algorithm used to approximate the physics of ion-neutral collisions.
Host: Andrew Cole
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