American Physical Society, Physical Review Letters, 8(111), 2013
DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.111.085003
Full text: Download
We present spatially resolved measurements characterizing the stagnation layer between two obliquely merging supersonic plasma jets. Intra-jet collisionality is very high ($λ_{ii} ≪ 1$mm), but the inter-jet ion-ion mean free paths are on the same order as the stagnation layer thickness (a few cm). Fast-framing camera images show a double-peaked emission profile transverse to the stagnation layer, with the central emission dip consistent with a density dip observed in the interferometer data. We demonstrate that our observations are consistent with collisional oblique shocks. ; Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures