Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma is used for various applications. DBD is also one of the most efficient and low-cost methods for active fluid flow control. In this study, a detailed physical model of DBD in atmospheric pressure at 1kV DC voltage is developed with COMSOL Multiphysics software. Argon gas is also used as a background gas and electrodes are assumed to be copper. Plasma parameters such as electron and ion density, electric field, potential, and temperature for different distances of electrodes (1.0mm, 0.9mm, 0.8mm) have been investigated. Moreover, the effect of dielectric type (Quartz, Silica Glass, Mica) on these key parameters is investigated. The results of the simulation show that the longitudinal distance of the buried electrodes to the exposed electrodes has a direct influence on parameters such as electron temperature, and electron and ion density which are the main factors of fluid flow control. These parameters have the maximum value when mica is used as a dielectric and the lowest value when silica glass is utilized.

We investigate the collective dynamics of multivortex assemblies in a two dimensional (2D) toroidal fluid film of distinct curvature and topology. The incompressible and inviscid nature of the fluid allows a Hamiltonian description of the vortices, along with a self-force of geometric origin, arising from the standard Kirchhoff-Routh regularization procedure. The Hamiltonian dynamics is constructed in terms of $q$-digamma functions $\Psi_q(z)$, closely related to the Schottky-Klein prime function known to arise in multiply connected domains. We show the fundamental motion of the two-vortex system and identify five classes of geodesics on the torus for the special case of a vortex dipole, along with subtle distinctions from vortices in quantum superfluids. In multivortex assemblies, we observe that a randomly initialized cluster of vortices of the same sign and strength (chiral cluster) remains geometrically confined on the torus, while undergoing an overall drift along the toroidal direction, exhibiting collective dynamics. A cluster of fast and slow vortices also show the collective toroidal drift, with the fast ones predominantly occupying the core region and the slow ones expelled to the periphery of the revolving cluster. Vortex clusters of mixed sign but zero net circulation (achiral cluster) show unconfined dynamics and scatter all over the surface of the torus. A chiral cluster with an impurity in the form of a single vortex of opposite sign also show similar behavior as a pure chiral cluster, with occasional ``jets" of dipoles leaving and re-entering the revolving cluster. The work serves as a step towards analysis of vortex clusters in models that incorporate harmonic velocities in the Hodge decomposition.

We report on experimental observations of the bending of a dust acoustic shock wave around a dust void region. This phenomenon occurs as a planar shock wavefront encounters a compressible obstacle in the form of a void whose size is larger than the wavelength of the wave. As they collide, the central portion of the wavefront, that is the first to touch the void, is blocked while the rest of the front continues to propagate, resulting in an inward bending of the shock wave. The bent shock wave eventually collapses, leading to the transient trapping of dust particles in the void. Subsequently, a Coulomb explosion of the trapped particles generates a bow shock. The experiments have been carried out in a DC glow discharge plasma, where the shock wave and the void are simultaneously created as self-excited modes of a three-dimensional dust cloud. The salient features of this phenomenon are reproduced in molecular dynamics simulations, which provide valuable insights into the underlying dynamics of this interaction.

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (1 November 2019 15:00 UTC-27 March 2020 17:00 UTC).We conduct two independent searches: a generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 gamma-ray bursts and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short gamma-ray burst progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these gamma-ray bursts. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for sub-threshold gravitational wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each gamma-ray burst. Finally, we constrain the population of low luminosity short gamma-ray bursts using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate.

We present a comparative study of turbulence transport in two optimized stellarator configurations: Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) and a recent design called Quasi-Symmetric Turbulence Konzept (QSTK). Using global gyrokinetic simulations with the Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC), we explore the role of zonal flows (ZFs) in suppressing electrostatic Ion Temperature Gradient (ITG) driven turbulence in both configurations. The simulations reveal that ZFs significantly reduce ion heat transport in both W7-X and QSTK, with a more pronounced impact on the latter configuration, as suggested by the apparently higher linear threshold ("critical") gradients for ITG modes. The study also highlights that, while both stellarators exhibit similar mode structures, the reduced ITG growth rates in QSTK contribute to the better performance regarding turbulence suppression, particularly at larger temperature gradients. The results support the notion that linear stability measures, in combination with nonlinear stabilization by zonal flows, can play an important role in the suppression of nonlinear heat fluxes.

In this study, we conduct 2D3V Particle-In-Cell simulations of hollow cathodes, encompassing both the channel and plume region, with an emphasis on plasma switch applications. The plasma in the hollow cathode channel can exhibit kinetic effects depending on how fast electrons emitted from the insert are thermalized via Coulomb collisions. The criterion that determines whether the plasma operates in a Duid or kinetic regime is given as follows. When Coulomb collisions occur at a much greater rate than ionization or excitation events, the Electron Energy Distribution Function relaxes to aMaxwellian distribution and the plasmawithin the channel can be describedwith aDuidmodel. In contrast, if inelastic processes are much faster, then the Electron Energy Distribution Function in the channel exhibits a notable high-energy tail, and a kinetic treatment is required. This criterion is applied to other kinds of hollow cathodes from the literature, revealing that a Duid approach is suitable for most electric propulsion applications, whereas a kinetic treatment might be necessary for plasma switches. Additionally, amomentumbalance reveals that a diffusion equation is sufAcient to predict the plasma plume expansion, a crucial input in the design of hollow cathodes for plasma switch applications.

The ionization efficiency of helicon plasma discharge is explored by changing the low axial magnetic field gradients near the helicon antenna. The highest plasma density is found for a most possible diverging field near the antenna by keeping the other operating condition constant. Measurement of axial wave number together with estimated radial wavenumber suggests the oblique mode propagation of helicon wave along the resonance cone boundary. Propagation of helicon wave near the resonance cone angle boundary can excite electrostatic fluctuations which subsequently can deposit energy in the plasma. This process has been shown to be responsible for peaking in density in low field helicon discharges, where the helicon wave propagates at an angle with respect to the applied uniform magnetic field. The increased efficiency can be explained on the basis of multiple resonances for multimode excitation by the helicon antenna due to the availability of a broad range of magnetic field values in the near field of the antenna when a diverging magnetic field is applied in the source.

We demonstrate by computer simulations, laser plasma experiments, and analytic theory that a hitherto unknown instability is excited in the beam plasma system with finite transverse size. This instability is responsible for the generation of magnetic fields at scales comparable to the transverse beam dimension which can be much longer than the electron skin depth scale. This counterintuitive result arises due to radiative leakage associated with finite beam boundaries which are absent in conventional infinite periodic systems considered in earlier simulations as well as theoretical analyses and may trigger a reexamination of a hitherto prevalent idea.

This study investigates the nonlinear interactions between electrons and electron-cyclotron resonance (ECR) heating beams in magnetized, low-temperature fusion plasmas, focusing on enhancing pre-ionization efficiency. We analyse key parameters affecting ECR absorption, including phase angle, temperature inhomogeneity, magnetic field gradients, and beam characteristics like width and frequency. Using 2D simulations for these low temperature plasmas, we demonstrate electrons gain energy through nonlinear trapping in velocity space near the resonance layer, achieving energy levels up to 1 keV under optimal conditions. Notably, narrow beam widths allow electrons to reach higher energy levels more efficiently than broader beams, highlighting the spatial localization of the nonlinear interactions to regions where the field is strong and frequency mismatch is small. Our findings show that in devices with lower-frequency ECR systems, such as TCV (82.7 GHz), electrons can gain up to 800 eV, while higher-frequency devices, like ASDEX-Upgrade (140 GHz) and ITER (170 GHz), achieve lower energy gains (480 eV and 420 eV, respectively) under similar conditions. These insights are directly applicable to improving ECR heating strategies, informing design choices in future fusion devices to optimize energy transfer during plasma breakdown and startup.

In this work, we report an innovative pump-probe based experimental set up, to study the melting, subsequent evaporation, plasma formation and redeposition in a thin film coated on a glass substrate under different ambient conditions and laser fluences. The ambient conditions restrict the expansion of the plasma plume. At high ambient pressure, plume expansion stops closer to the substrate and get re-deposited at the site of the ablation. This helps in the identification of multiple processes and their temporal evolutions during the melting, expansion and re-deposition stages. The ambient conditions affect the plasma plume formed upon ablation, thus modulating the transmission of probe laser pulses, which provides information about the plume dynamics. Further, the study offers valuable insights into the laser-based ablation of thin film coatings, which will have implications in in situ cleaning of view ports on large experimental facilities such as tokamaks and other systems e.g. coating units, pulsed laser deposition, Laser induced forward transfer, Laser surface structuring, etc.

Corrosion of Indian RAFMS (reduced activation ferritic martensitic steel) material with liquid metal, Lead Lithium ( Pb-Li) has been studied under static condition, maintaining Pb-Li at 550 C for different time durations, 2500, 5000 and 9000 hours. Corrosion rate was calculated from weight loss measurements. Microstructure analysis was carried out using SEM and chemical composition by SEM-EDX measurements. Micro Vickers hardness and tensile testing were also carried out. Chromium was found leaching from the near surface regions and surface hardness was found to decrease in all the three cases. Grain boundaries were affected. Some grains got detached from the surface giving rise to pebble like structures in the surface micrographs. There was no significant reduction in the tensile strength, after exposure to liquid metal. This paper discusses the experimental details and the results obtained.

Magnetic pickup loops or B-dot probes are one of the oldest known sensors of time-varying magnetic fields. The operating principle is based on Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction. However, obtaining accurate measurements of time-varying magnetic fields using these kinds of probes is a challenging task. A B-dot probe and its associated circuit are prone to electrical oscillations. As a result, the measured signal may not faithfully represent the magnetic field sampled by the B-dot probe. In this paper, we have studied the transient response of a B-dot probe and its associated circuit to a time-varying magnetic field. Methods of removing the oscillations pertaining to the detector structure are described. After removing the source of the oscillatory signal, we have shown that the time-integrated induced emf measured by the digitiser is linearly proportional to the magnetic field sampled by the B-dot probe, thus verifying the faithfulness of the measured signal.

We provide a thorough comparison of the GMHD3D code and the PLUTO4.4 code for both two and three-dimensional hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic problems. The open-source finite-volume solver PLUTO4.4 and the in-house developed pseudo-spectral multi-GPU solver GMHD3D both can be used to model the dynamics and turbulent motions of astrophysical plasmas. Although GMHD3D and PLUTO4.4 utilize different implementations, it is found that simulation results for hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic problems, such as the rate of instability growth, 3-dimensional turbulent dynamics, oscillation of kinetic & magnetic energy, and recurrence dynamics, are remarkably similar. However, it is shown that the pseudo spectral solver GMHD3D is significantly more superior than the grid based solver PLUTO4.4 for certain category of physics problems.

Detector characterization and data quality studies -- collectively referred to as {\em DetChar} activities in this article -- are paramount to the scientific exploitation of the joint dataset collected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA global network of ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. They take place during each phase of the operation of the instruments (upgrade, tuning and optimization, data taking), are required at all steps of the dataflow (from data acquisition to the final list of GW events) and operate at various latencies (from near real-time to vet the public alerts to offline analyses). This work requires a wide set of tools which have been developed over the years to fulfill the requirements of the various DetChar studies: data access and bookkeeping; global monitoring of the instruments and of the different steps of the data processing; studies of the global properties of the noise at the detector outputs; identification and follow-up of noise peculiar features (whether they be transient or continuously present in the data); quick processing of the public alerts. The present article reviews all the tools used by the Virgo DetChar group during the third LIGO-Virgo Observation Run (O3, from April 2019 to March 2020), mainly to analyse the Virgo data acquired at EGO. Concurrently, a companion article focuses on the results achieved by the DetChar group during the O3 run using these tools.

Polarized emission carries captivating information and can help understand various elementary processes involving collisions within the plasma as well as in radiative transitions. In this work, we investigate the spatio-temporal dependence of the emission anisotropy of a nanosecond laser produced aluminium plasma at 100 mbar background pressure. We observe that the anisotropy of the emission spectra exhibits interesting spatio-temporal characteristics which in turn depend on the charge state of the emitting species. The degree of polarization (DOP) is found to reverse its sign along the plume propagation direction. Observed behaviour in DOP appears to be due to the contribution from various involved atomic processes. However, closer to the sample the contribution from the self-generated magnetic field predominantly affect the polarization. On the other hand, the effect of the self generated magnetic field on the observed polarized emission is insignificant as the plume propagates away from the sample. This is of particular interest in polarization resolved laser induced breakdown spectroscopy as spatio-temporal profile of the degree of polarization has to be properly taken into account prior to the spectral analysis.

Understanding electron and ion heating phenomenon in capacitively coupled radio-frequency plasma discharges is vital for many plasma processing applications. In this article, using particle-in-cell simulation technique we investigate the collisionless argon discharge excited by temporally asymmetric sawtooth-like waveform. In particular, a systematic study of the electric field nonlinearity and field reversal phenomenon by varying the number of harmonics and its effect on electron and ion heating is performed. The simulation results predict higher harmonics generation and multiple field reversal regions formation with an increasing number of harmonics along with the local charge separation and significant displacement current outside sheath region. The field reversal strength is greater during the expanding phase of the sheath edge in comparison to its collapsing phase causing significant ion cooling. The observed behavior is associated with the electron fluid compression/rarefaction and electron inertia during expanding and collapsing phase respectively.

Microstrip patch antennas are low-profile and robust when mounted on rigid surfaces of the devices making them suitable for communication and millimeter-wave applications. In this paper, an antenna is designed for the resonant frequency of 170 GHz using microstrip technology concerning its miniaturization and cost-effectiveness. The designed antenna is a part of a stray radiation detection system for ECE diagnostic to be installed on fusion research machine ITER. It offers low-directivity to receive radiation from all directions, high bandwidth, low side-lobe-level and return loss of -50 dB, leading to its remarkable utilization in the detection system being designed to protect millimeter wave components of ITER ECE Diagnostic. Power-handling and power-capturing capability of the designed antenna have also been discussed in the paper. Far-field simulations have been performed using CST Microwave Studio software to study the radiation characteristics of the designed antenna.

Achieving large-scale kinetic modelling is a crucial task for the development and optimization of modern plasma devices. With the trend of decreasing pressure in applications such as plasma etching, kinetic simulations are necessary to self-consistently capture the particle dynamics. The standard, explicit, electrostatic, momentum-conserving Particle-In-Cell method suffers from restrictive stability constraints on spatial cell size and temporal time step, requiring resolution of the electron Debye length and electron plasma period respectively. This results in a very high computational cost, making the technique prohibitive for large volume device modeling. We investigate the Direct Implicit algorithm and the explicit Energy Conserving algorithm as alternatives to the standard approach, both of which can reduce computational cost with a minimal (or controllable) impact on results. These algorithms are implemented into the well-tested EDIPIC-2D and LTP-PIC codes, and their performance is evaluated via 2D capacitively coupled plasma discharge simulations. The investigation revels that both approaches enable the utilization of cell sizes larger than the Debye length, resulting in reduced runtime, while incurring only minor inaccuracies in plasma parameters. The Direct Implicit method also allows for time steps larger than the electron plasma period, however care must be taken to avoid numerical heating or cooling. It is demonstrated that by appropriately adjusting the ratio of cell size to time step, it is possible to mitigate this effect to an acceptable level.

We report the experimental observation of fully developed Kolmogorov turbulence originating from self-excited vortex flows in a three-dimensional (3D) dust cloud. The characteristic -5/3 scaling of three-dimensional Kolmogorov turbulence is universally observed in both the spatial and temporal power spectra. Additionally, the 2/3 scaling in the second-order structure function further confirms the presence of Kolmogorov turbulence. We also identified a slight deviation in the tails of the probability distribution functions for velocity gradients. The dust cloud formed in the diffused region away from the electrode and above the glass device surface in the glow discharge experiments. The dust rotation was observed in multiple experimental campaigns under different discharge conditions at different spatial locations and background plasma environments.