Experiments and Observations on Intense Alfven Waves in the Laboratory and in Space

There are many situations, which occur in space (coronal mass ejections, supernovas), or are man-made (upper atmospheric detonations) in which a dense plasma expands into a background magnetized plasma that can support Alfven waves. The LArge Plasma Device (LAPD) is a machine, at UCLA, in which Alfven wave propagation in homogeneous and inhomogeneous plasmas has been studied. These will be briefly reviewed. A new class of experiments which involve the expansion of a dense (initially, δn/no>>1) laser-produced plasma into an ambient highly magnetized background plasma capable of supporting Alfven waves will be presented. Measurements are used to estimate the coupling efficiency of the laser energy and kinetic energy of the dense plasma into wave energy. The wave generation mechanism is due to field aligned return currents, coupled to the initial electron current, which replace fast electrons escaping the initial blast