A laboratory model for the Parker spiral and magnetized stellar winds

Many rotating stars have magnetic fields that interact with the winds they produce. The Sun is no exception. The interaction between the Sun’s magnetic field and the solar wind gives rise to the heliospheric magnetic field—a spiralling magnetic structure, known as the Parker spiral, which pervades the Solar System. This magnetic field is critical for governing plasma processes that source the solar wind. Here, we report the creation of a laboratory model of the Parker spiral system based on a rapidly rotating plasma magnetosphere and the measurement of its global structure and dynamic behaviour. This laboratory system exhibits regions where the plasma flows evolve in a similar manner to many magnetized stellar winds. We observe the advection of the magnetic field into an Archimedean spiral and the ejection of quasi-periodic plasma blobs into the stellar outflow, which mimics the observed plasmoids that fuel the slow solar wind. This process involves magnetic reconnection and can be modelled numerically by the inclusion of two-fluid effects in the simulation. The Parker spiral system mimicked in the laboratory can be used for studying solar wind dynamics in a complementary fashion to conventional space missions such as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission. The Parker spiral—arising from the interaction between the Sun’s magnetic field with the solar wind—is recreated in the laboratory from a rapidly rotating plasma magnetosphere.