The collimated propagation causes of astrophysical and laboratory jets

TL;DR

This study uses laboratory experiments and numerical modeling to investigate how collimation in astrophysical and laboratory jets occurs, revealing that successive ejections create a low-resistance region that maintains jet collimation.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that the formation of a vacuum trace behind successive ejections enhances jet collimation, supported by experimental results and numerical simulations applicable to young star jets.

Findings

Successive ejections create a low-density region that reduces environmental resistance.

Numerical models confirm the collimation effect observed in experiments.

The effect is significant for understanding astrophysical jet propagation.

Abstract

The use of Z-pinch facilities makes it possible to carry out well-controlled and diagnosable laboratory experiments to study laboratory jets with scaling parameters close to those of the jets from young stars. This makes it possible to observe processes that are inaccessible to astronomical observations. Such experiments are carried out at the PF-3 facility ("plasma focus", Kurchatov Institute), in which the emitted plasma emission propagates along the drift chamber through the environment at a distance of one meter. The paper presents the results of experiments with helium, in which a successive release of two ejections was observed. An analysis of these results suggests that after the passage of the first supersonic ejection, a region with a low concentration is formed behind it, the so-called vacuum trace, due to which the subsequent ejection practically does not experience environmental resistance and propagates being collimated. The numerical modeling of the propagation of two ejections presented in the paper confirms this point of view. Using scaling laws and appropriate numerical simulations of astrophysical ejections, it is shown that this effect can also be significant for the jets of young stars.