Studying Magnetic-Pressure-Driven Bow Shocks at OMEGA*

We present data and analysis from a campaign to study astrophysically relevant, magnetic-pressure-driven bow shocks at the OMEGA laser facility. The system consists of a slow, low-density plasma flow impinging on the external azimuthal magnetic field around a current-carrying wire. The spatially resolved optical Imaging Thomson Scattering diagnostic provides quantitative measurements of electron number density and temperature across a shock. Proton images also indicate the formation of an MHD shock at a standoff distance from the wire. We simulate the experiment using the FLASH code and compare these results to the data.