Instabilities in Pair Plasmas in Astrophysical Environments and the Laboratory

by Marvin Beck (Hamburg University)

Thursday 14 Apr 2022, 15:00 → 16:30 Europe/Berlin

Neutral plasma beams consisting in equal parts of electrons and positrons are produced in a number of astrophysical environments (e.g. pair production from TeV gamma rays on EBL). These pair beams can interact with their environment via collective effects draining energy from the beam into electromagnetic fields and heating the background medium. Using the particle-in-cell method these beams can be studied to great detail in computer simulations. In the future it could be possible to study these instabilities in scaled-down laboratory experiments and extrapolate to astrophysical systems using scaling relations.This talk will give an overview of the instability effects relevant to pair beams produced by TeV gamma ray sources and the unique challenges and opportunities of studying them in a laboratory experiment.

Join the meeting here: Zoom link

Meeting ID: 921 1801 0804
Passcode: 68144845