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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Observation of a Kelvin-helmholtz instability in a high-energy-density plasma on the omega laser
E C Harding1, J F Hansen, O A Hurricane
1University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA.
Abstract:
A laser initiated experiment is described in which an unstable plasma shear layer is produced by driving a blast wave along a plastic surface with sinusoidal perturbations. In response to the vorticity deposited and the shear flow established by the blast wave, the interface rolls up into large vortices characteristic of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. The experiment used x-ray radiography to capture the first well-resolved images of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices in a high-energy-density plasma.
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