Research funded by Dr Francisco Suzuki-Vidal Plasma Physics Group Science and Engineering Open Day Physics Department, Imperial College London 26th June 2019 @FSuzukiVidal A typical night sky * (*) might not apply to the UK 2 The Carina Nebula Hubble Space Telescope Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 3 The Carina Nebula Hubble Space Telescope Herbig-Haro object HH 901 (*) 500 km is roughly the distance from London to Paris… in 1 second Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 4 Planets Stars Supernovae Cassini (NASA) Solar Dynamics Observatory Crab nebula (NASA) Extreme Extreme Extreme pressure temperature speed ~1 million ~1 million ~1000 km/s atmospheres degrees (2 million mph) (*) This is roughly the pressure of a blue whale trying to fit in a stiletto… Main ingredients for jets and shock waves note the pain in its face! Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 5 With telescopes in space or on Earth Jodie Foster in Contact (1997) (Warner Bros) (NASA/ESA) Hubble Space Telescope Very Large Array radio telescope (~30 years) (40+ years!) LOADS of high quality data BUT… You take a single ‘snapshot’ of an object This isn’t what I do… (NOAO/AURA/NSF) Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 6 • 6.8 billion particles Run a massive computer simulation • Simulation ran for 6 weeks • 32 TB of RAM, 500 TB of data LOADS of high quality data BUT… You need a super-computer This isn’t what I do… Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 7 What if we could made a miniature version of the Sun, Saturn, a supernova, a stellar jet and shocks… in the laboratory…? Doc Emmett Brown in Back to the Future (1985) (Universal Pictures) Nasser Al-Mutawa / Flickr This is what I do! Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 8 Example: Kelvin-Helmholtz instability from shear between two fluids (*) I recorded this Clouds Kevin-Helmholtz event in the Summer of 2017! ~ km Saturn’s atmosphere ~10,000 km (NASA/ESA) Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 9 Another example: Shock waves ~ cm ~ meters ~ 1014 meters NASA / ESA Arthur Anker / Flickr Christopher Pasatieri / Reuters The pistol shrimp uses its claw Sonic boom in Baby stars ‘vomit’ jets that drive to make a shock wave supersonic flight shock waves Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 10 @MagpieImperialCollege MAGPIE: Mega-Ampere Generator for Plasma Implosion Experiments 1 million Amperes in 1 millionth of a second (1 TeraWatt of electricity) You jet is here Transmission lines (‘cables’) Capacitors rd (‘batteries’) Happy 3 year physics undergrad Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 11 MAGPIE is a world-class research facility in laboratory-astrophysics at Imperial Experiment Computer simulation Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 12 30 mm HH47 MAGPIE’s ultra high-speed camera: 30,000,000 fps iPhone: HH34 60 fps Slow Mo Guys: 300,000 fps MAGPIE Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 13 NIF: The National Ignition Facility (Livermore, California) lasers.llnl.gov lasers.llnl.gov (*) This laser is roughly the size of 3 football pitches (*) This is a vacuum chamber larger than a typical London flat lasers.llnl.gov Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 14 E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope) Space IS the final frontier: New telescopes, experiments and IDEAS ESO NASA/JPL James Webb Space Telescope ESA (C. Carreau) Francisco Suzuki-Vidal ( [email protected] ) 15.