OXFORD PLASMA THEORY GROUP
THE LEVERHULME TRUST INTERNATIONAL NETWORK ON MAGNETISED PLASMA TURBULENCE

PLASMA SEMINARS AND GROUP MEETINGS

The style of the Seminars will be informal/chaotic/interactive, following the established tradition.
The format of the presentations can be a tutorial on a topic of interest, a report on just completed/ongoing/just starting/potentially interesting research projects, a literature review, a lecture by a passing visitor or anything else worthwhile that anyone cares to suggest. The speakers will be interrupted freely and asked to defend themselves.

For background reading, only the most relevant or the most recent references are posted; please follow the paper trail from there.


The schedule is subject to change on short notice, but what you see posted here is always up to date.

Please email Alex Schekochihin if you would like to receive email updates on these seminars.

Financial support for those coming from outside Oxford is available: travel will be paid by the Leverhulme Network grant.
If a guest room is required in Oxford, this can be arranged, although might prove difficult if requested on short notice.
The grant can also support overseas visitors --- suggestions about whom to invite are welcome.

"Group meetings to discuss current affairs" will discuss current affairs (ongoing projects, etc.). They are open to all members of the Oxford Plasma Theory Group (which is easy to join). While some expected contributions are pre-announced, everything is TBC and people wishing their work to be discussed can volunteer contributions without prior notice. Unlike for the seminars, there will not be full-spam-list email reminders of the group meetings.

Autumn 2007; Winter-Spring 2008; Summer 2008;
Autumn 2008; HT 2009; TT 2009; Summer 2009;
MT 2009; HT 2009; TT 2010; Summer 2010;
MT 2010

  Hilary Term 2011

The seminars will start at 14:30 in 501 DWB ("the Seminar Room"), unless otherwise specified below.

For the Culhamites: there is a train from Culham to Oxford at 14:01.

Related series: TURBSIM seminars at Culham

Wk Date
Time & place
Speaker & Topic
Background reading
Visitors in town
during the week

Thu 6 Jan
2:30pm
Video Conf
Rm, DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
New Year resolutions?
Diffusion of impurities discussion.
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
Bryan's paper:
Phys Fluids 4, 1142 (1961)
Jack's paper:
Plasma Phys 15, 765 (1973)

0
Thu 13 Jan
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Brian Reville (Oxford/ALP) --- Radiative signatures of Fermi acceleration at relativistic shocks.
[this will include a general overview of relativistic shocks]
ApJL 710, L16 (2010)

I
Thu 20 Jan
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Michael Barnes (Oxford/TP) --- Transitions to reduced transport regimes in rotating tokamak plasmas.
[this will include both review of past work and update on recent progress, as yet unpublished]
arXiv:1009.0733
this preprint
[0D background
to new 1D results
to be reported]

II
Thu 27 Jan
2:00pm
Culham
The 22nd UK Fusion Theory Seminar (contact Sarah Newton for further info/access to site).
Alex Robinson (CLF) --- Controlling relativistic electron flows in dense plasmas for inertial fusion applications.
Alessandro Zocco (CCFE) --- Electron heating in collisionless magnetic reconnection: a gyrokinetic theory.

III
Thu 3 Feb
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Joseph Parker --- Update on numerical methods for ITG.
Ian Abel --- Update on the DT particle transport problem.
Edmund Highcock --- What did GLF know about transport bifurcations?
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
Comp. Phys. Comm. 181, 1428 (2010)
PoP 12, 022305 (2005)
PoP 4, 2482 (1997)


IV
Thu 10 Feb
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Robert Wicks (Imperial) --- Alfvenic turbulence in the solar wind: anisotropy, imbalance, dynamic alignment.
arXiv:1009.2427
MNRAS 407, L31 (2010)
Tim Horbury
(Imperial)
Robert Wicks (Imperial)
V
Thu 17 Feb
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Justin Wark (Oxford/ALP) --- Creation and diagnosis of solid density plasmas.
PRL 104, 225001 (2010)

VI
Thu 24 Feb
2:00pm
Culham
The 23rd UK Fusion Theory Seminar (contact Sarah Newton for further info/access to site).
Michael Fitzgerald (Australian National University) --- 2D analytical high-beta equilibria with toroidal flow
Jerry Chittenden (Imperial) --- Ignition processes in magnetically driven, imploding, inertial fusion plasmas

VII
Thu 3 Mar
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Philipp Mertsch (Oxford/TP) --- The PAMELA anomaly: Evidence for a nearby cosmic particle accelerator?
arXiv:0909.4060
arXiv:1012.4239

VIII
Tue 8 Mar
12:30
BIPAC
Astrophysics Brown Bag Seminar:
Matt Kunz (Oxford/TP) --- Dynamical stability of a thermally stratified intracluster medium with anisotropic momentum and heat transport.


Thu 10 Mar
3:00pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Bryan Taylor --- Update on the DT particle transport (theory).
Michael Barnes & Felix Parra --- Critical balances, parallel correlations and transport scalings for ITG turbulence.
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

Bryan's notes are
available from him,
on request

9
Thu 17 Mar
No seminar


Thu 24 Mar
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Agenda for Vienna is likely to be discussed
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]



Mar 29-Apr 1
Vienna Meeting on Kinetics for Space Plasmas
(everyone who is going to the working group meeting the week after is welcome to this one as well)

Thu 31 Mar
2:00pm
Culham
The 24th UK Fusion Theory Seminar (contact Sarah Newton for further info/access to site).
Chris Ham (Culham) --- Analytic modelling of resistive wall mode stabilization including toroidal effects and differential rotation.
Erwin Verwichte (Warwick) --- MHD waves in structured plasmas: a solar coronal viewpoint

Trinity Term 2011