Recreating the conditions of space at our fingertips

I've now FINISHED my Physics degree at Imperial College!

As part of the fourth year of my degree, I had to carry out an MSci project. This is a research based project that allows students to work with research groups in the Physics department and carry out real research!

We had to bid for the projects we wanted and since I am heavily involved with and interested in the Plasma Physics Group at Imperial College I decided to opt for a project with the plasma group. I was lucky enough to find a lab partner that was really enthusiastic about plasma physics too (shout out to Danny for being an AMAZING project partner!). I was so excited to start fourth year and get down to the lab for some science-y fun! In the end, my lab partner and I were lucky enough to get the project that would involve working on the mighty MAGPIE machine!

MAGPIE stands for Mega Ampere Generator for Plasma Implosion Experiments. In simple terms, MAGPIE is the LARGEST university-based pulsed power generator! It generates a HUGE surge of current than blows up really thin wires turning them into a plasma. From here, we can try and recreate the conditions of space in the lab. MAGPIE is an absolutely HUGE machine that spans across two floors of the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College. It is made up of four large capacitor banks which store a huge amount of charge! My MSci project is one of the most unique projects because not many people get to work on MAGPIE and I feel so lucky to have been able to work on mighty MAGPIE! I couldn't wait to get started!

WHY IS MY WORK EXCITING?

A journey into space is challenging. It requires a big team of trained individuals, large rockets, lots of fuel and carefully thought-out mathematics and physics. Thus, learning about the inner processes of the phenomena and bodies in space can be a difficult task. Venturing out into the depths of our cosmos to collect data is problematic because of two main reasons: space is vast and the dynamics of objects in space evolve over timescales many orders of magnitude larger than the average human lifetime. Consequently, our Universe is most commonly studied by observing and analysing the light from it. This light has stored information which can allow us to find out vital data such as the speed of orbiting bodies and the chemical composition of stars. This was how we discovered the element, Helium.

Plasma, the fourth state of matter, makes up 99.999\% of the Universe, therefore, being able to gain useful information about the dynamics of space-plasmas is vital. Analysing the light given off by this exciting state of matter does not allow scientists to understand its dynamics. Consequently, a different method is required. Scientists can do this by recreating the conditions of space in their laboratories, a field known as laboratory astrophysics. Researchers at Imperial College London in the heart of the basement of the Physics Department mimic large astrophysical events such as supernovae explosions in the MAGPIE laboratory.

MAGPIE stands for Mega Ampere Generator for Plasma Implosion Experiments. It is the largest university-based pulsed power machine or ‘electricity generator’ that delivers a 1-million-amp current pulse in 240 billionths of a second! This generates a power of about 1 trillion Watts which is more than the average power generated by the UK National Grid! Using this large current pulse, scientists on MAGPIE can generate plasmas by sending this current through aluminium wires as thin as your hair which causes them to vaporise and turn into a plasma. Thereafter, I can watch the plasma flow around different obstacles.

On MAGPIE, I try to recreate the scenarios commonly associated with astrophysical jets. These are large, powerful streams of plasma and radiation that can be found near super massive black holes. In the same way that a curve of water forms in front of a race boat in water, a ‘curve of plasma’ known in science as a bow shock forms around the astrophysical jets due to plasma streaming outwards into space at near light speed, pushing matter in the vicinity out of the way. An example of a bow shock forming around an astrophysical jet can be seen below.

Image displays a bow shock around LL Ori, a young star in the Great Nebula in the Orion constellation. A bow shock formed when the stellar wind collided with the gas in the surrounding area.  Photo courtesy of NASA/ESA.

By watching plasma flow around different objects, I can reconstruct bow shocks in the MAGPIE experimental chamber. The main object of interest in my research work is that of intersecting bow shocks. When two bow shocks interact at a particular critical angle, they reflect off each other and merge so that another shock, known as a Mach stem, forms. I am searching for the elusive Mach stem which has never been observed in the laboratory before. By using scaling laws, I can scale-up my small, short-lived experiments to large astrophysical scales that are up to 20 orders of magnitude larger! Utterly mind-blowing!



MY WORK IN PICTURES

Cutting the thin Aluminium wires to size for the wire array (plasma maker) I'm about to make

Central experimental chamber in MAGPIE

Me and my lab book

This is the contraption that holds the wires, that will then vapourise and turn into a plasma in the central experimental chamber in MAGPIE 

When MAGPIE is charging that red light flashes and sirens go off!

Gas pressures!

Ear defenders for safety!

Making a wire array - that concentration though!

MAGPIE!

Science always works better when there's a whiteboard involved!

My wire array is complete!

Optics and vacuum chambers!

Gas pressures

Check out our glass targets

The same targets but now with a different separation

Cutting thin aluminium wires for the wire array

Sometimes things in science experiments break and you have to fix them - here, I'm fixing a switch

MAGPIE experimental chamber in all its glory

Glass target

Overalls I had to wear when I went inside one of the Marx (capacitor) banks of MAGPIE - it's an oily ordeal

When lasers are on, do not enter

That BOOM! button is obviously the best button

LASERS ARE ON

I'm inside a Marx bank! Those weird pipes are (handmade) liquid resistors

Wire array and target alignment complete

Sometimes things break in science experiments

The wire cutting station

Flat glass targets

Working on MAGPIE can be a messy job!

My trainers have been well and truly MAGPIE-ed! #OilyMoly

Photoshoot I did for Diverse@Imperial week

Women can do physics too!

Bird's eye view of a Marx bank

Let's fix those switches in the Marx bank - Mission Accepted

I'm going in... 

Optics!

Sometimes I make Facebook Live videos and get caught in action :P

Sometimes lab work can up your fashion game - ripped jeans are in fashion at the moment, thanks MAGPIE!

My poster for Diverse@Imperial week

MAGPIE central experimental chamber

Bird's eye view of the experimental chamber in MAGPIE

'Hopefully I can inspire the younger generation, particularly females, to catch the physics bug just like me!'

Photoshoot

Photoshoot

Trigger and arm!

The lid for the experimental chamber is heavy and has it's own crane to lift it up!

Data analysis 

Targets

Cutting glass to make some of the targets for an experimental shot - safety goggles because safety always comes first

MAGPIE photoshoot

I do love experimental physics!

That concentration face

Filing down wires for my target fabrication

A shot has been fired!

Reading around the subject/field of research so I can further my knowledge of the research work I am carrying out

Data analysis/Report writing

MAGPIE is pretty big!

Mirrors are super useful for getting lasers to change their direction of propagation/go around corners

A wire array that will end up 'blowing up' in an experimental shot when ~ a million

It's been SO much fun working on MAGPIE and I feel so lucky to have worked on this incredible machine. I'd like to thank Daniel Russell for being an AMAZING lab partner and for putting up with my banter, you're the best Danny! A huge thank you to Prof. Sergey Lebedev, Dr. Guy Burdiak and Dr. Lee Suttle for being amazing supervisors, for passing on their knowledge and expertise. Thanks to Jack Hare, Jack Halliday, Francisco Suzuki-Vidal, Thomas Clayson for being a pleasure to work with and for answering all my MAGPIE questions as well as offering great tea breaks during long hours of work on MAGPIE.

I feel sad that this chapter of my life has come to an end but I am ever grateful for all the amazing experiences I've had during my undergraduate degree - I've learnt so much, met wonderful people and did things that I'd never thought I'd ever do - like going to America! Thank you Imperial College for all you've offered me, it's been a blast! 

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I'm going to be at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition talking about laboratory astrophysics with the Make A Supernova team which is a collaboration between scientists at Imperial College London, the University of Oxford and AWE. You can come along and find out more about my research and that of the other scientists in the team - if you do come don't be afraid to come up to me and ask me lots of questions (or even take a selfie)! I'm more than happy to answer your questions! Save the event in your diary and come to the Royal Society between the 4th and 9th of July and you could make your own MEGA smoke ring at our stand too! Check us out @MakeASupernova on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you do come up to our stand, take a picture with our Instagram frame and use the hashtag #MakeASupernova