Seminars Michaelmas Term of 2018

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. "Plasma group meetings" 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. 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. The seminars and group meetings are organised by Michael Barnes, Felix Parra and Alex Schekochihin, please contact them with any queries or if you wish to present something.

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; MT 2015; HT 2016; TT & Summer 2016; Autumn/MT 2016; HT 2017; TT & Summer 2017; Autumn/MT 2017; HT 2018; TT & Summer 2018;

Michaelmas Term of 2018

The seminars/group meetings will be on Thursday at 11:00 in 501 Denys Wilkinson Building, except where indicated otherwise below.
Note also the ALP Seminars (here is a list of all Physics seminars)

Wk	Date	Time & place	Speaker & Topic	Background reading	Comings and goings (incl. visitors in town)
-2	Thu Sept 20	No seminar, Madrid meeting
-1	Thu Sept 27	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Alex Schekochihin --- Thermo-Alfvenic instability in tokamaks?	typed notes on request	Ivan Calvo (CIEMAT) Alessandro Geraldini leaves for Maryland
0	Thu Oct 4.	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Seminar (organised by FELIX) Ivan Calvo (CIEMAT) --- Some recent advances in the theory and modeling of stellarator neoclassical transport	JPP 84, 905840407 (2018) arXiv:1803.05691	Ivan Calvo (CIEMAT) Toby Adkins, Javier Maurino-Alperovich, & David Hosking start their DPhils
I	Thu Oct 11	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Toby Adkins --- Relaxation and nonlinearity: the phase-space dynamics of Vlasov-kinetic plasmas	MMathPhys thesis on request	Ivan Calvo (CIEMAT)
II	Thu Oct 18	No seminar: MAST-U opening ceremony at Culham at 10:00. Contact Lisa Jones if you want to attend.			Steve Cowley (Princeton)
III	Thu Oct 25	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Seminar (organised by ALEX) Alex Schekochihin --- Fluidisation of collisionless plasma turbulence	arXiv:1808.04284
IV	Thu Nov 1	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL) Michael Hardman --- Simulating scale separated ion scales in practice	draft paper/slides on request
V	Thu Nov 8	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Seminar (organised by FELIX) Robert MacKay FRS (Warwick) --- Some mathematics about quasi-symmetry		Robert MacKay FRS (Warwick)
VI	Thu Nov 15	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Seminar (organised by ALEX) Mitch Begelman (Colorado) --- Kinetic modeling of particle acceleration in relativistic plasmas		Mitch Begelman (Colorado)
VII	Mon Nov 19	14:00 D Sciama LT, DWB	Astrophysics Colloquium: Mitch Begelman (Colorado) --- Accretion discs, elevated In addition to driving turbulence that transfers angular momentum and permits accretion disks to accrete, the magnetorotational instability also creates a strong, relatively organized magnetic field parallel to the disk plane. Under certain conditions, this field can build up to the point where it dominates other forms of pressure in supporting the disk vertically against gravity. Such "magnetically elevated" disks would have dramatically different properties from standard disks. I will discuss our current understanding of elevated disks and show that their existence can resolve several longstanding problems in accretion disk theory, applied to such systems as quasars, X-ray binaries and cataclysmic variables.		Mitch Begelman (Colorado)
VII	Thu Nov 22	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by FELIX) General discussion/Michael Hardman		Mitch Begelman (Colorado)
VIII	Thu Nov 29	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by FELIX) Nothing to talk about
9	Thu Dec 6	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by FELIX) Mantas Abazorius --- Transfer report (Update on collisional presheath)	transfer report on request
10	Thu Dec 13	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Alex Schekochihin --- Constraints on ion vs. electron heating by plasma turbulence at low beta	paper draft on request
	Thu Dec 20	11:00 501 DWB	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL) Oliver Beeke --- Transfer report (Turbulence suppression in tokamak plasmas)	transfer report on request
	Thu Dec 27	No seminar (Merry Xmas!)