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

  Michaelmas Term 2010

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 30 Sept
No seminar
Jim Stone
(Princeton)
0
Thu 7 Oct
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Felix Parra --- Optimal momentum injection.
Edmund Highcock --- Update on subcritical turbulence.
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

arXiv:1009.0733

I
Thu 14 Oct 2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Alfred Mallet --- KAW turbulence at sub-Larmor scales: scalings, anisotropy, etc. in AstroGK simulations by Greg Howes.
Edmund Highcock --- Update on subcritical turbulence.
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

PRL 100, 065004 (2008)
arXiv:1004.0279
 
4:30pm
(coffee 4pm
wine 5:30)
L2 Maths
Institute
Applied Mathematics Seminar:
Julian Hunt (UCL) --- Thin shear layers: the key to turbulence structure.
JHER 4, 75 (2010)
II
Tue 19 Oct
12:00pm
501 DWB
Astrophysics Theory Brown Bag Seminar:
Alex Schekochihin (Oxford, ThPhys) --- Fast magnetic reconnection in unstable current sheets.
arXiv:1008.3330
Wed 20 Oct
2:00pm
Culham
HOW Rm
CCFE Colloquium (contact Anthony Webster for further info/access to site).
Sandra Chapman (Warwick) --- Plasma turbulence in the solar wind.

Thu 21 Oct 2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Michael Barnes & Felix Parra --- Report from the IAEA conference.
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]


III
Thu 28 Oct
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Klara Schure (Oxford, ALP) --- Spectra and energies of cosmic rays in young supernova remnants.
MNRAS 406, 2633 (2010)

Fri 29 Oct
11:45am
Dartington House
OCIAM Industrial & Interdisciplinary Workshops:
John Allen (Oxford, OCIAM) --- The Bennett pinch revisited.

IV
Thu 4 Nov
2:00pm
Culham
K1/0/38
The 20th UK Fusion Theory Seminar (contact Chris Ham for further info/access to site).
Howard Wilson (York) --- The theory of small scale tearing modes in magnetised plasmas: an overview.
Koki Imada (York) --- Collision frequency dependence of NTM threshold.
Daniel Dunai
(RMKI Budapest)
Thu 5 Nov
10:00am
Culham
Pease Rm
Special meeting to discuss upcoming BES measurements of turbulence on MAST: physics, strategy, modelling (contact Anthony Field for further info/access to site).
V
Thu 11 Nov
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Gianluca Gregori (Oxford, ALP) --- Laboratory experiments on magnetic field generation in collisionless shocks.
Daniel Dunai
(RMKI Budapest)
VI
Thu 18 Nov No seminar
Daniel Dunai
(RMKI Budapest)
VII
Wed 24 Nov
2:00pm
Culham
HOW Rm
CCFE Colloquium (contact Anthony Webster for further info/access to site).
Peter Davidson (Cambridge) --- Structure formation in rapidly rotating turbulence.
Daniel Dunai
(RMKI Budapest)
Thu 25 Nov
2:30pm
501 DWB
(map)
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Michael Barnes & Edmund Highcock --- Report from the APS DPP Meeting.
Greg Colyer --- MAST transport simulations update.
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

Fri 26 Nov
2:15pm
D Sciama LT
Theoretical Physics Colloquium:
Felix Parra (Oxford ThPhys) --- Rotation in nuclear fusion devices.

VIII
Wed 1 & Thu 2 Dec
All day
Culham
MAST Research Forum-2010

9
Thu 9 Dec 1:30pm
Culham
Zeta Rm
The 21th UK Fusion Theory Seminar (contact Chris Ham for further info/access to site).
Dr Rob Akers (CCFE) --- Compute Unified Device Architecture (or how not to be driven up the wall).
Dr Ruth Bamford (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory) --- Small scale natural and artificial cavities in space and laboratory plasmas.
Stuart Bale
(UC Berkeley)
[at Imperial]

Thu 16 Dec No seminar


Thu 23 Dec
No seminar

Thu 30 Dec
No seminar

Hilary Term 2011