Study of Nonlinear Interaction and Turbulence of Alfven Waves in LAPD Experiments

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This award is made in response to a proposal submitted to and reviewed under the NSF/DoE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering joint solicitation NSF 08-589. The award provides funds to support undergraduate participation in the overall research effort, which is being funded separately by the DoE [OFES Science report #09ER55049]. The project is devoted to analytic and numerical study of nonlinear interaction and turbulence of Alfven waves in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) which is a part of the Basic Plasma Science Facility (BAPSF) at UCLA. The proposed research is aimed at extending the results obtained for incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence to plasma turbulence, and at providing analytic and numerical support to the experiments on Alfvenic turbulence conducted in LAPD. The research will be strongly integrated with teaching. It is proposed to develop the new course onMHD Turbulence on the graduate level, and the new course on Plasma Astrophysics for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. The courses will reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the proposed research, and will cater to students in Physics, Astronomy and Engineering Departments. An essential part of the project is effective integration of state-of-the art analytic and numerical methods with laboratory studies, which is indispensable in training graduate and undergraduate student. This NSF award provides travel support for the Graduate Research Assistant involved with this research project.