Authors: Kamil D. Sklodowski (Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA), Shreekrishna Tripathi (Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA), Troy Carter (Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA)

Solar atmosphere is carpeted with arched magnetic structures that confine millions degree hot plasma and drive energetic eruptions. We present results from a laboratory plasma experiment on spatio-temporal evolution of an arched magnetized plasma (β ≈ 10^-3, Lundquist number ≈ 10⁴, plasma radius/ion gyroradius ≈ 20) in a sheared magnetic configuration. The arched plasma is produced using a hot-cathode lanthanum hexaboride (LaB₆) source and it evolves in an ambient magnetized plasma produced by another LaB₆ source [1].  The experiment is designed to model conditions relevant to the formation and destabilization of similar structures in the solar atmosphere. In this experiment,  magnitude of a nearly horizontal overlying magnetic field was varied to study its role in producing a sheared magnetic configuration and destabilizing the arched plasma [2]. Under eruptive conditions, large-scale ejections appear resembling characteristics of solar jets produced from emerging magnetic flux in a large-scale coronal field [3]. Nature and evolution of eruptive structures were investigated in the experiment using three-dimensional measurements of relevant plasma parameters.

Acknowledgment: This research was supported by the US Department of Energy under award number DE-SC0022153 and National Science Foundation under award number 1619551.

References:

(1) Tripathi and Gekelman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 075005 (2010)

(2) Sklodowski, Tripathi, and Carter, J. Plasma Phys. 87(6), 905870616 (2021)

(3) Archontis et. al.,  J. Astrophys. 635 (2), 1299 (2005)