Physical Review E (Plasma physics)

Author(s): Prakriti Pal Choudhury and Archie F. A. Bott

How momentum, energy, and magnetic fields are transported in the presence of macroscopic gradients is a fundamental question in plasma physics. Answering this question is especially challenging for weakly collisional, magnetized plasmas, where macroscopic gradients influence the plasma's microphysic…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065212] Published Wed Jun 24, 2026

Author(s): Y. Z. Han, K. G. Zhao, Z. Y. Li, Y. X. Liu, C. Xue, J. W. Li, Z. Chen, J. Q. Dong, J. F. Wu, L. F. Wang, and W. Y. Zhang

Hydrodynamic instabilities seeded by isolated internal defects remain a critical performance-limiting factor in inertial confinement fusion experiments. Here we extend the concept of dynamic stabilization via temporally modulated laser pulses from the main drive [K. G. Zhao et al., Phys. Rev. E 109,…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065211] Published Mon Jun 22, 2026

Author(s): Beatrice Paraschiv, Dorina Ticoş, Nicoleta Udrea, Adrian Scurtu, Maria L. Mitu, and Cătălin M. Ticoş

Dust clusters with crystalline structure, formed by charged microparticles in complex plasmas, can undergo phase transitions under external influences. While many studies have focused on the effects of temperature and pressure on crystallization, it is worthwhile to investigate a different factor su…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065209] Published Tue Jun 16, 2026

Author(s): M. Khan, K. Churnetski, D. E. M. Barlow, R. Betti, C. Freeman, K. Glize, J. Kunimune, A. Lees, R. Mancini, A. Nutter, R. W. Paddock, S. Regan, C. Stoeckl, W. Theobald, N. Woolsey, and R. H. H. Scott

Shock-augmented ignition (SAI) [R. H. H. Scott et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 195001 (2022)] is an alternative inertial confinement fusion concept that is designed to achieve high energy gain by combining improved resilience to instabilities with enhanced fuel compression. In SAI, lower implosion vel…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065210] Published Tue Jun 16, 2026

Author(s): Ida Svenningsson, Emiliya Yordanova, Yuri V. Khotyaintsev, Mats André, Giulia Cozzani, Alexandros Chasapis, and Steven J. Schwartz

Despite heat flux's role in regulating energy conversion in collisionless plasmas, its properties and evolution in the magnetosheath downstream of the Earth's bow shock are scarcely explored. We use Magnetospheric Multiscale in situ measurements to quantify and characterize the electron heat flux in…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, L063201] Published Mon Jun 15, 2026

Author(s): Pooja Dalal and Ram Prasad Prajapati

The Jeans instability in an unmagnetized, collisionless self-gravitating plasma characterized by a kappa or Lorentzian velocity distribution is investigated in the framework of kinetic and fluid approaches. We have examined the role of suprathermality on the instability threshold wave number and gro…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065208] Published Fri Jun 12, 2026

Author(s): B. Disson, N. Bonifaci, O. Lesaint, C. Poulain, R. Dussart, and S. Iseni

This experimental work reinvestigates the breakdown voltage in air for electrode gaps ranging from 0.10 to 6.00µm. Rarely addressed in the literature of the field, a special focus is placed on varying the gas humidity and its direct impact on the breakdown voltage. For short distances (<2µm), the…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065207] Published Thu Jun 11, 2026

Author(s): Nami Li, Xueqiao Xu, Ben Dudson, Rob Falgout, and Giorgis Georgakoudis

Edge-localized modes (ELMs) eject intense bursts of heat and particles that threaten plasma-facing components in fusion reactors. Nonlinear full-torus BOUT++ simulations show that turbulence-driven zonal magnetic fields (ZMFs) play an essential role in nonlinear ELM evolution by maintaining self-con…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065204] Published Mon Jun 08, 2026

Author(s): Zheng Gong, Sida Cao, Caleb Redshaw, and Matthew R. Edwards

Using particle-in-cell simulations to study nonrelativistic laser pulse propagation in an under-critical plasma, we identify a novel mechanism that occurs during the growth of turbulent magnetic loops: electron penetration heating. The loops have an electromagnetic left-hand chirality distinct from …

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065205] Published Mon Jun 08, 2026

Author(s): Bao Du, Dongguo Kang, Peilin Yao, Fengjun Ge, Zhensheng Dai, Shiyang Zou, Zongqiang Yuan, Lianqiang Shan, Hongbo Cai, and Shaoping Zhu

The outflow velocity of expanding deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel can become significant after the bangtime, approaching local ion thermal velocity when the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) hotspot surpasses the ignition threshold. Under such conditions, the conventional assumption of an isotropic targ…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065206] Published Mon Jun 08, 2026

Author(s): Ashmita Panda, Jim Browning, and Allen L. Garner

While the behavior of virtual cathodes (VCs) in a space-charge limited gap in the absence of a magnetic field is well understood, it is less characterized for crossed-field gaps with perpendicular magnetic and electric fields. Thus, this study examines VC formation at steady state in a crossed-field…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065202] Published Wed Jun 03, 2026

Author(s): Maxim Tereshchenko

The cyclotron resonance dynamics of ions in a uniform magnetic field under the action of a plane left-handed polarized wave is considered. The dynamics of initially slow ions is nonlinear: they periodically synchronously (regardless of the initial phase of interaction) gain and then lose energy. The…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065203] Published Wed Jun 03, 2026

Author(s): Raymond Lau and Seth Davidovits

We demonstrate the onset of Rayleigh-Bénard convection (RBC) near the fuel-ablator interface of inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosion simulations for the scenario in which Rayleigh-Taylor or Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities are suppressed. This convective heating within the cold fuel can degrad…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 065201] Published Tue Jun 02, 2026

Author(s): Alejandro Mesa Dame, Eric S. Lavine, and David A. Hammer

We present an analytical 1D axisymmetric model describing the evolution of the dynamic Z pinch. This model is capable of predicting the trajectories of the imploding sheath's magnetic piston and preceding shock front, along with the velocity, pressure, density, and magnetic field profiles, for any t…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055213] Published Fri May 29, 2026

Author(s): Jin-Ze Liu, Heng Zhang, Dong-Ning Gao, and Wen-Shan Duan

This study uses three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations to investigate the nonlinear evolution of electromagnetic waves propagating perpendicular to an external magnetic field in a magnetized plasma, with an emphasis on wave breaking and electron energization. In the weakly nonlinear regime (…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055214] Published Fri May 29, 2026

Author(s): Adrian Scurtu, Dorina Ticoş, Nicoleta Udrea, Maria L. Mitu, Beatrice Paraschiv, and Cătălin M. Ticoş

Energy injection and dissipation in nonequilibrium systems typically lock microscopic motion and collective flow into a coupled evolution. Our observations in electron-beam-driven dusty plasma reveal a distinct “kinetic decoupling” regime where this synchrony breaks down. While microscopic and colle…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055215] Published Fri May 29, 2026

Author(s): Chubin Lin, Jiandong Chen, Huihui Wang, and Yangyang Fu

This Letter uncovers five distinct charge transport modes and their transitions in dual-energy electron beam diodes. We via first-principle particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations establish that the specific mode (e.g., space-charge oscillations) and the current transmitted characteristics are essentiall…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, L053203] Published Wed May 20, 2026

Author(s): Dipankar Ray, Pralay Kumar Karmakar, Bharati Kakad, and Amar Kakad

The Jeans instability is a fundamental mechanism driving the gravitational collapse and subsequent structure formation in diverse self-gravitating astrophysical environments. We present comprehensive numerical fluid simulations of the Jeans instability in a three component dusty plasma system. The h…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055212] Published Fri May 15, 2026

Author(s): Jordan Lee, Peter Norreys, Robert Paddock, Matthew Oliver, Pawala Ariyathilaka, Christopher Spindloe, Donna Wyatt, Samuel Irving, Ben Fisher, Nigel Woolsey, Stavros Bakandreas, Bruno Albertazzi, Michel Koenig, Piotr Rączka, Takayoshi Sano, Alexis Amouretti, Naoki Yamagata, Kai Taketoshi, Kosuke Nishitani, and Norimasa Ozaki

Low-density foams are of significant interest in inertial confinement fusion (ICF), with potential applications as fuel carriers, ablation layers, or as a hohlraum filling material. Despite their potential, the shock response of these materials remains poorly characterized, limiting the accuracy of …

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055210] Published Thu May 14, 2026

Author(s): F. Massimo, I. Moulanier, A. Guerente, O. Khomyshyn, M. Masckala, T. L. Steyn, U. Schramm, A. Irman, and B. Cros

High-accuracy modeling of laser-plasma interactions at high intensity requires precise knowledge of the laser field, including its asymmetries. However, the experimental characterization of such lasers is often limited to fluence measurements in transverse planes, which creates the need for a reliab…

[Phys. Rev. E 113, 055211] Published Thu May 14, 2026