Intra-jet shocks in two counter-streaming, weakly collisional plasma jets

Counterstreaming laser-generated plasma jets can serve as a test-bed for the studies of a variety of astrophysical phenomena, including collisionless shock waves. In the latter problem, the jet’s parameters have to be chosen in such a way as to make the collisions between the particles of one jet with the particles of the other jet very rare. This can be achieved by making the jet velocities high and the Coulomb cross-sections correspondingly low. On the other hand, the intra-jet collisions for high-Mach-number jets can still be very frequent, as they are determined by the much lower thermal velocities of the particles of each jet. This paper describes some peculiar properties of intra-jet hydrodynamics in such a setting: the steepening of smooth perturbations and shock formation affected by the presence of the “stiff” opposite flow; the role of a rapid electron heating in shock formation; ion heating by the intrajet shock. The latter effect can cause rapid ion heating which is consistent with recent counterstreaming jet experiments by Ross et al. [Phys. Plasmas 19, 056501 (2012)].