AAS 196th Meeting, June 2000

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[22.05] Astrophysical Jets in a Can

A. Frank (University of Rochester)

In this talk I discuss the importance of collimated outflows to astrophysics and the efforts underway to explore them in the laboratory.

Collimated outflows in the form of high mach number jets or wider bipolar outflows occur in many astrophysical environments. Jets are seen in young stellar objects, proto-planetary nebulae, compact objects and AGN. Bipolar outflows occur in YSOs, planetary nebulae and evolved high mass stars such as Luminous Blue Variables and WR stars. In many cases both the jets and outflows show evidence for spatial and temporal variability.

These systems are either by hydrodynamic or magnetohydrodynamic in nature and are, as such, are governed by highly non-linear coupled equations. While numerical simulations have revealed many aspects of jet and outflow behavior, direct experimentation would open a new window into the physics of these systems. Experiments using intense lasers have shown their ability to create collimated flows that scale directly to systems observed on the sky. These experiments, along with others currently planned, hold the promise of allowing astrophysicist to validate their numerical codes and gain new insights into the behavior of collimated outflows

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