Laboratory astrophysics with plasmas: from Herbig–Haro jets to shock-wave analogues of cosmology — Felipe Veloso Espinosa (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

Most of the visible Universe is plasma, shaped by jets, shocks and turbulence that astronomers can observe but never repeat or control. Laboratory astrophysics complements observations: high-power lasers and pulsed-power generators create nanosecond, millimetre-scale plasmas. When the key dimensionless numbers match, these plasmas obey the same equations as flows spanning light-years. I will introduce this approach with experiments from our group at FisicaUC: supersonic jets resembling Herbig–Haro objects, and colliding shocks that form the Mach stems seen in stellar outflows. I will then show that a blast wave can act as a small-scale analogue of an expanding universe. Like the cosmic scale factor, a blast wave’s radius grows as a power law in time, and the exponent depends on how energy is deposited. This defines an effective equation of state, just as different cosmic components do. Following one laser-driven shock along different paths, we find stages resembling radiation- and matter-dominated eras, then mild accelerated expansion. We also see a Hubble-like velocity–distance law and ripples on the shock front that decay like gravitational waves. These are analogies, not tests of cosmology, but they offer a tangible, laboratory window into cosmological dynamics.

Horarios: 13 Oct 2026

Publicado por: Gijs Mulders