  This work studies the interaction between colliding plasma jets to understand
regimes in which jet merging results in shock formation versus regimes in which
the shock formation is mitigated due to the collisionless interpenetration of
the jets. A kinetic model is required for this study because fluid models will
always produce a shock upon the collision of plasma jets. The
continuum-kinetic, Vlasov-Maxwell-Dougherty model with one velocity dimension
is used to accurately capture shock heating, along with a novel coupling with a
moment equation to evolve perpendicular temperature for computational
efficiency. As a result, this relatively inexpensive simulation can be used for
detailed scans of the parameter space towards predictions of shocked versus
shock-mitigated regimes, which is of interest for several fusion concepts such
as plasma-jet-driven magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF), high-energy-density
plasmas, astrophysical phenomena, and other laboratory plasmas. The initial
results obtained using this approach are in agreement with the preliminary
outcomes of the Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX).
