Session GP1 - Poster Session IV.
POSTER session, Tuesday afternoon, October 30
Exhibit Hall B,
This paper attempts to illustrate to students and the general public relationships between laboratory plasma physics and cosmological plasmas. The development of fusion energy is often likened to harnessing the power of the sun and stars. Indeed, many of the physical conditions, as well as scientific processes, are akin. Thus laboratory experiments have advanced scientific understanding of our universe. The plasma temperatures in the interior of fusion experiments can exceed the hundred million degree temperature of the universe posited a few hours following the Big Bang. The Big Bang theory says that this hot plasma universe cooled during the first million year period when radiation and matter strongly interacted. Ions and electrons recombined to form atoms, from which today’s universe emerged. Inertially confined plasmas are dominated by similar radiation-matter interactions to achieve fusion. Magnetically confined edge plasmas similarly radiate energy and recombine to shield experiment walls from melting and erosion caused by impinging high temperature plasma. Understanding the structure and dynamics of laboratory plasmas can thus provide glimpses into the past of our universe.