Physical Review E (Plasma physics)

Author(s): Ian D. Min-Roberts, Wojciech Rozmus, and Pierre A. Michel

Speckles, or laser hot spots, are the intensity maxima of optically smoothed laser beams that seed instabilities, making a quantitative statistical description of speckles of interest. Earlier statistical theories estimated the number of speckles above an intensity level set for optically smoothed b…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 045202] Published Fri Oct 02, 2026

Author(s): Z. H. Chen, Z. Q. Zhao, X. H. Yang, L. R. Li, B. Zeng, Z. Li, B. H. Xu, G. B. Zhang, H. H. Ma, M. Tang, Y. Y. Ma, H. Xu, F. Q. Shao, and J. Zhang

Distortions in the electron distribution function driven by intense temperature gradients critically influence the heat transport and the generation and evolution of magnetic fields in plasmas under the condition of inertial confinement fusion. Describing such kinetic behaviors at large spatiotempor…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 045201] Published Thu Oct 01, 2026

Author(s): E. A. Smith, J. J. Ruby, D. A. Chin, D. T. Bishel, M. E. Signor, T. E. Evans, K. N. Lofton, N. V. Kabadi, J. R. Rygg, and G. W. Collins

Laser-driven spherical implosion experiments create some of the most extreme states of matter accessible in the laboratory. However, experimental observables in implosion experiments are highly integrated, meaning that measurements cannot be straightforwardly inverted to characterize the thermodynam…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035216] Published Tue Sep 29, 2026

Author(s): Nicholas Mitchell, David Chapman, and Grigory Kagan

This work demonstrates the impact of ion-electron collisions on ion transport for strongly inhomogeneous plasmas in the nonlocal regime, where collisionality is insufficient to enforce local thermal equilibrium due to sharp gradients. Ion heat conduction and viscous stress in both unmagnetized and m…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035215] Published Fri Sep 25, 2026

Author(s): M. L. Shmatov

Petrov [Phys. Rev. E 111, 035205 (2025)] has presented an explanation of some parameters of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes within the framework of his model which is based on the assumptions about the formation of surface plasmon waves and the generation of synchrotron radiation due to the interactio…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 037201] Published Fri Sep 25, 2026

Author(s): Mariami Kavtaradze, George Mamatsashvili, George Chagelishvili, and Elene Uchava

We investigate magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in plane shear flows with a streamwise background magnetic field in the super-Alfvénic regime, i.e., when the flow velocity is larger than the local Alfvén speed. In this regime, turbulence is energetically supplied by large-scale shear of the flow…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035214] Published Thu Sep 24, 2026

Author(s): Yao-Li Liu and Yasuhiro Kuramitsu

Nonthermal power-law spectra with index −2 are ubiquitously observed in turbulent wakefield acceleration, yet their statistical origin remains unresolved. Using one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations with particle tracking, we analyze the stochastic energy evolution of electrons accelerated by…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035213] Published Wed Sep 23, 2026

Author(s): S. Chintalwad and David J. Stark

Laser-driven ion acceleration offers a promising route toward compact high-energy particle sources, yet achieving control of beam collimation, spectral width, and laser-to-ion energy conversion remains a central challenge for most applications. Using two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simul…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035212] Published Tue Sep 22, 2026

Author(s): Zhe Liu, Zhongping Zhao, and Yinjian Zhao

Cross-field electron transport in Hall thrusters is widely attributed to high-frequency E×B instabilities, yet its net spatial pathway remains poorly resolved. Here we perform instability-resolving three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of a Hall thruster using a boundary-faithful and highly…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035211] Published Mon Sep 21, 2026

Author(s): K. Zsukovszki, I. Papp, and L. P. Csernai

Using fully kinetic three-dimensional particle-in-cell (EPOCH) simulations, we investigate resonant planar nanoantenna configurations supporting localized surface plasmon resonances in hydrogen-rich media under irradiation by 795 nm femtosecond laser pulses with intensities of 1017–1019 W/cm2. The s…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035210] Published Thu Sep 10, 2026

Author(s): T. Morita et al.

This paper presents an experimental investigation of magnetic reconnection between two laser-produced expanding plasmas, focusing on the quantitative evaluation of the reconnection rate and energy conversion under varying initial conditions. By changing the separation distance between the drive lase…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035206] Published Tue Sep 08, 2026

Author(s): A. A. Shelkovoy and S. A. Uryupin

Equations describing evolution of the velocity of a rarefied ion beam in a plasma with ion-acoustic turbulence are derived and solved. An ion beam with velocity u greater than the sound speed vs decelerates due to Cherenkov radiation of ion-acoustic waves. Conversely, a beam with u<vs accelerates…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035207] Published Tue Sep 08, 2026

Author(s): Jan Bartsch, Alfio Borzì, Paul-Antoine Hervieux, and Giovanni Manfredi

This paper proposes an optimal control strategy to cool an antiproton plasma in a time much shorter than that required by an adiabatic process. The authors examine the length and stability of the plasma, in addition to its duration. The work suggests that optimal control techniques may be useful for experiments with plasmas, in particular with antimatter plasmas, which need to be confined and cooled before significant losses and annihilation occur.

#TimelyTopic #TechnicalAdvancement #ClearMotivation

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035208] Published Tue Sep 08, 2026

Author(s): Adrian Scurtu

A dusty plasma cloud hosting a counter-rotating vortex lobe pair is driven through controlled neutral-gas pressure ramps spanning nearly an order of magnitude in rate. The transient response is characterized by the longitudinal transport exponents αL and αR, extracted from mean-squared displacements…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035209] Published Tue Sep 08, 2026

Author(s): Fei-Yun Ding, Fei-Fei Li, Juan-Fang Han, and Wen-Shan Duan

We investigate dust-acoustic rogue waves in a one-dimensional binary dusty plasma using analytical nonlinear Schrödinger equation theory and fully kinetic particle-in-cell simulations. Modulational instability initially drives nonlinear focusing and rogue-wave formation, consistent with fluid predic…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035204] Published Fri Sep 04, 2026

Author(s): Xinyang Liu, Yuhui Xia, Letian Liu, Zhiyan Yang, Zewei Xu, Zhuo Pan, Xuezhi Wu, Xueqing Yan, Chen Lin, and Xinlu Xu

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) provides a compact platform for generating bright, ultrashort, and tunable x-ray betatron radiation. When the betatron oscillation wavelength matches the laser centroid oscillation period in a preformed plasma channel, resonance occurs, leading to a rapid amplific…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035205] Published Fri Sep 04, 2026

Author(s): Riddhi Bandyopadhyay, Subash Adhikari, Yan Yang, and William H. Matthaeus

A key principle underlying most turbulence theories is that the mean energy dissipation rate remains finite even as viscosity vanishes: the so-called zeroth law of turbulence. Although this property has been established for hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence, its validity in weakl…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035202] Published Wed Sep 02, 2026

Author(s): Jingwei Xing and Jianmin Yuan

The configuration path integral Monte Carlo (CPIMC) method is employed to perform first-principles simulations of warm dense matter based on atomic orbitals. The system is modeled as an ion sphere with a pointlike nucleus at its center, and the electronic many-body problem is solved using CPIMC with…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035203] Published Wed Sep 02, 2026

Author(s): Romain Pioch, Marie-Alix Sagnimorte, Benjamin Esteves, and Cyril Drag

A laser induced fluorescence (LIF) scheme is investigated to probe singly ionized iodine ions (I+) in electric propulsion devices. The transition 6sS2o5→6pP35 at 516.261 nm is considered and the theoretical computation of the weights and positions of the hyperfine structure is carried out. First, th…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 035201] Published Tue Sep 01, 2026

Author(s): A. W. Klemmer, S. E. Kreher, T. M. Hutchinson, E. P. Yu, T. J. Awe, C. L. Rousculp, D. H. Dolan, B. T. Hutsel, K. C. Yates, K. J. Swanson, J. J. Iratcabal, A. Dahal, and B. S. Bauer

Metal conductors pulsed with intense electrical current are of fundamental importance to physics and engineering, yet their motion, equation-of-state (EOS), and electrical conductivity during the solid-liquid phase transition are not fully understood. Photon Doppler velocimetry (PDV) measurements of…

[Phys. Rev. E 114, 025210] Published Fri Aug 28, 2026