Scaled laboratory experiments explain the kink behavior of the Crab Nebula jet

The remarkable discovery by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory that the Crab nebula’s jet periodically changes direction provides a challenge to our understanding of astrophysical jet dynamics. To study the physics of this jet in the laboratory for the first time, we used high-power lasers to create a plasma jet that could be directly compared with the Crab nebula jet through well-defined physical scaling laws. Here we show that such a jet generates its own embedded toroidal magnetic fields; as it moves, plasma instabilities result in multiple deflections of the propagation direction, mimicking the kink behavior that has been observed in the Crab jet. The experiment is modeled with 3-dimensional numerical simulations that show exactly how instability develops and causes the kinks and resultant changes of direction in the jet. We expect that future work along this line will have important impact on the study and understanding of fundamental astrophysical phenomena.