UCLA

We have commissioned a high-energy glass-laser at the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) to study the interaction of a dense laser-produced plasma with a large (17 m) magnetized plasma. First experiments with an energy of the laser blow-off an order of magnitude higher than previous work (Gekelman et al. in J. Geophys. Res. 108(A7):1281, 2003) produced large amplitude Alfvén waves (δ B ⊥ /B 0≈15%). We will discuss the potential of this facility for collisionless laboratory astrophysics experiments.