Influence of a Uniform Magnetic Field on the Generation of Strong Small-Scale Magnetic Fields during the Injection of a Plasma with Hot Electrons into an Inhomogeneous Cold Plasma Layer

Abstract

We carry out a numerical modeling of plasma injection with hot electrons into a thin layer of cold plasma in the presence of an external magnetic field. We show that the latter can significantly affect the emerging small-scale current filaments and sheets, even if it does not magnetize the particles and does not change the overall dynamics of the redistribution of the total plasma density in the process of injection. The effect observed depends on the orientation of the external magnetic field that is parallel to the plane that bounds the cold plasma layer, if the injection occurs from a narrow strip lying in this plane. In this situation, which corresponds to the ablation of a flat target by a femtosecond laser beam using cylindrical focusing, we study the evolution of the characteristic structures of the formed small-scale magnetic field. It is established that its generation is associated with instabilities of the anisotropic velocity distribution of electrons and that its value can be many times greater than the value of the external magnetic field.