Laboratory Modeling of Standing Shocks and Radiatively Cooled Jets with Angular Momentum

David J. Ampleford (1) , Sergey V. Lebedev (2) , Andrea Ciardi (3) , S. N. Bland (2) , Simon C. Bott (2) , Gareth N. Hall (2) , N. Naz (2) , C. A. Jennings (1) , M. Sherlock (2) , Jeremy P. Chittenden (2) , Adam Frank (4) , Eric G. Blackman (4)

1 Sandia National Laboratories
2 CCM - Centre for Cold Matter, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ,
3 LUTH (UMR_8102) - Laboratoire Univers et Théories
4 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester

Collimated flows ejected from young stars are believed to play a vital role in the star formation process by extracting angular momentum from the accretion disk. We discuss the first experiments to simulate rotating radiatively cooled, hypersonic jets in the laboratory. A modification of the conical wire array z-pinch is used to introduce angular momentum into convergent flows of plasma, a jet-forming standing shock and into the jet itself. The rotation of the jet is evident in laser imaging through the presence of discrete filaments which trace the rotational history of the jet. The presence of angular momentum results in a hollow density profile in both the standing conical shock and the jet.

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

David J. Ampleford, Sergey V. Lebedev, Andrea Ciardi, S. N. Bland, Simon C. Bott, et al.. Laboratory Modeling of Standing Shocks and Radiatively Cooled Jets with Angular Momentum. Astrophysics and Space Science, 2007, 307, pp.51-56. ⟨10.1007/s10509-006-9258-x⟩. ⟨hal-03785969⟩