Observation of kinetic plasma jets in a coronal-loop simulation experiment

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Mar 30;98(13):135002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.135002. Epub 2007 Mar 30.

Abstract

Under certain conditions an intense kinetic plasma jet is observed to emerge from the apex of laboratory simulations of coronal plasma loops. Analytic and numerical models show that these jets result from a particle orbit instability in a helical magnetic field whereby magnetic forces radially eject rather than confine ions with sufficiently large countercurrent axial velocity.