OXFORD PLASMA THEORY GROUP

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; the seminars are also announced via the department's seminar server (group meetings are not). Please email Alex Schekochihin if you would like to receive email updates on these seminars.

"Group meetings to discuss current affairs" will discuss current affairs (ongoing projects, new litearture etc.) as well as feature some presentations that are even more informal than seminars. 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.


Past seminar database:
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; HT 2011; TT 2011; Summer 2011; MT 2011; HT 2012; TT 2012; Summer 2012; MT 2012; HT 2013; TT & Summer 2013; MT 2013; HT 2014; TT & Summer 2014; MT 2014; HT 2015; TT & Summer 2015

  Autumn/Michaelmas Term of 2015

The seminars/group meetings will be on Thursday at 11:30 in 501 DWB, except where indicated otherwise below.


If you know exactly what you are going to do, what is the point of doing it? Pablo Picasso
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
Maynard Keynes

Every line in your calculations ends with "=0". You are not making much progress! Kate Hammett
We don't do the calculation because we don't know the answer, we do it because we have a conscience. Bryan Taylor
Let's change the resolution on the Unknown. Gabe Plunk
Let me put it differently: suppose we had a reactor... Per Helander
Working together takes more than one person. Bill Dorland
We can't do ultraviolence to that square bracket. Ian Abel
Field lines are forever. Bryan Taylor
This is not really an ill-posed problem, this is not a problem at all. Paul Dellar
I am just doing mathematics at the moment, but it is mathematics that has some point. Bryan Taylor
The equivalent of God in MAST is MHD, which is global and all powerful. Anthony Field
 I've got a fishbone coming up. Tim Horbury
We have crossed all the i's and dotted all the t's. Job's a good'un. Ian Abel
Let's not jump in front of the bandwagon! Anonymous
It's not the triviality, it's the emptiness of it that bothers me. Bryan Taylor
This is a very inefficient way of achieving nothing. François Rincon
We Hankel all the way in and then Hankel all the way out. Joseph Parker
For fairness' sake, let me mention that some people have objections to this, none of which is particularly valid. Chris Chen
Yes, Steve, you have always known what we have only just figured out. Alfred Mallet
This is more or less right. Perhaps less. Alfred Mallet
You go ahead with your argument. I'll think. Steve Cowley
At the end of my talk, you will beg for simplicity! Andrey Beresnyak


Wk Date
Time & place
Speaker & Topic
Background reading
Comings and goings
(incl. visitors in town)

1-4 Sept
AOPP
Dobson
Rm
Leverhulme workshop in Oxford on Waves and Turbulence in Rotating, Stratified and Electrically Conducting Fluids
(organised by Peter Read and Peter Davidson)
Sept 1: Stratified Flows
Sept 2: Zonal Flows
Sept 3: MHD/Astro
Sept 4: Oceans/Waves/Turbulence
Here is the full programme
Peter Davidson
(Cambridge)

Thu 10 Sept
11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Alessandro Geraldini --- Solving the ion problem in the collisionless magnetic presheath
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
J. Phys D 24, 493 (1991)
Phys. Fluids 25, 1628 (1982)
Peter Davidson
(Cambridge)
1-11 Sept
Conference at Imperial on mathematics of kinetic systems

Thu 17 Sept
11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

Charles Gammie (Illinois)
on sabbatical at All Souls
till end of MT

Thu 24 Sept
11:30
501 DWB
Room is booked, but I won't be there. Please self-organise!


Thu 1 Oct
11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Justin Ball --- Intrinsic momentum transport in tokamaks with tilted elliptical flux surfaces (EFTC invited talk dry run)
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
arXiv:1403.3293
Michael Hardman
(adviser M. Barnes)
and Archie Bott
(advisers G. Gregori and A. Schekochihin)
join the group
as DPhil students
0
5-8 Oct
16th European Fusion Theory Conference, Lisbon
Christopher McKee
(UC Berkeley)
I
Thu 15 Oct
11:30
501 DWB
Plasma Seminar:
Charles Gammie (Illinois) --- Extended MHD models for black hole accretion
ApJ 810, 162 (2015)
Christopher McKee
(UC Berkeley)
II
Mon 19 Oct
14:00
Sciama LT
Astrophysics Colloquium:
Christopher McKee (UC Berkeley) --- Magnetic fields in star formation
Christopher McKee
(UC Berkeley)
Thu 22 Oct 11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

III
Mon 26 Oct
9:30
Culham
Special seminar:
Jim Callen (UW Madison) --- Effects of resonant 3-D magnetic fields on pedestals
followed by discussion on
New opportunity for gyrokinetics — unify with tokamak extended MHD and transport modeling?
Jim Callen
(UW Madison)
Christopher McKee
(UC Berkeley)
Thu 29 Oct 11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]

IV
Thu 5 Nov
11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Michael Fox --- MAST turbulence through the eye of Beam Emission Spectroscopy (Princeton seminar dry run)
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
preprint available
from the author

V
Thu 12 Nov 11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Alex Schekochihin --- Pressure-anisotropy-driven microturbulence and magnetic-field evolution in shearing, collisionless plasma (informal summary)
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
preprint available
from the author
see also
PRL 112, 205003 (2014)
MNRAS 440, 3226 (2014)

VI
Thu 19 Nov 11:30
501 DWB
Room is booked, but I won't be there. Please self-organise!

16-20 Nov
APS DPP Meeting in Savannah
VII

Mon 23 Nov
14:00
D. Sciama
Astrophysics Colloquium:
Lorenzo Sironi (Harvard/Columbia) --- The journey of high-energy photons in blazar jets

John Papaloizou
(DAMTP, Cambridge)
Lorenzo Sironi
(Harvard/Columbia)

Thu 26 Nov
11:30
501 DWB
Room is booked, but I won't be there. Please self-organise!
Fri 27 Nov
13:00
Culham
K1/0/85
UK Fusion Theory Meeting:
Michael Barnes (Oxford) --- Intrinsic rotation driven by turbulence in tokamaks
VIII
Thu 3 Dec
11:30
501 DWB
Room is booked, but I won't be there. Please self-organise!

9
Tue 8 Dec
14:00
Audrey Wood Rm
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Alessandro Geraldini --- Gyrokinetic treatment of a grazing angle magnetic presheath
preprint available
from the author

Thu 10 Dec
11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
1. Alex Schekochihin --- Numerical dynamo in a collisionless plasma: at last!
(briefing on F. Rincon's just-submitted instant-classic paper)
2. Michael Fox --- News from the Savannah APS DPP Meeting
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
F. Rincon's
preprint available
on request

10
Thu 17 Dec
11:30
501 DWB
Group meeting to discuss current affairs:
Michael Fox --- Update on MAST turbulence measurements: technique and results
...
[everything TBC; unannounced contributions welcome]
preprint available
from the author


Thu 24 Dec
Merry Xmas!


Thu 31 Dec
Happy NY!


Hilary Term of 2016