Seminars Autumn and Michaelmas Term of 2023

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 (or journal clubs)" 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 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; MT 2018; HT 2019; TT & Summer 2019; MT 2019; HT 2020; TT & Summer 2020; MT 2020; HT 2021; TT & Summer 2021; Autumn/MT 2021; HT 2021; TT & Summer 2022; Autumn/MT 2022; HT 2023; TT & Summer 2023;

Autumn and Michaelmas Term of 2023

The seminars/group meetings will be on Tuesday at 14:00 in the Simpkins Lee Room, Beecroft Building, except where indicated otherwise below, in red.
It will be possible to join these meetings (when they are held in SL Room) on ZOOM --- details available from Alex on request.
Those who join these meetings on ZOOM are asked keep their video cameras on.
The ZOOM system in Simpkins Lee Room does not display a list of participants whose cameras are off. It is not germane to these informal meetings to have invisible listeners of whom those present in the room are unaware, so if you are unable or unwilling to turn on your camera, you cannot join the meeting.
Here is a list of all Physics seminars.

If you know exactly what you are going to do, what is the point of doing it? Pablo Picasso
He goeth furthest who knows not whither he is going. Oliver Cromwell

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
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
We have crossed all the i's and dotted all the t's. Job's a good'un. Ian Abel
Let us not jump in front of the bandwagon! Alex Schekochihin
It's not the triviality, it's the emptiness of it that bothers me. Bryan Taylor
Never take 0 for an answer. Alex Schekochihin
This is a very inefficient way of achieving nothing. Francois Rincon
For the sake of fairness, let me mention that some people have objections to this, none of which are particularly valid. Chris Chen
This is more or less right. Perhaps less. Alfred Mallet
Too simple? At the end of my talk, you will beg for simplicity! Andrey Beresnyak
What is the point? The point is not the point! Anonymous
This is why I am presenting this here and nowhere else: nothing is solved! Ian Abel
Previous studies of this problem have been either unsatisfactory or limited in scope.---What is the difference between these?---This means either wrong or irrelevant. Anatoly Spitkovsky, Michael Medvedev & Steve Cowley (in conversation)

I don't give a damn about astrophysics, explain to me what is going on. Anatoly Spitkovsky

Have you subtracted the baby with the bathwater? Steve Balbus
This is not rigour, unless you mean rigor mortis. Ian Abel

I wouldn't say these are theoretical arguments... Let's just call them arguments. Francois Rincon

It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong. Carveth Read (usually attributed to Maynard Keynes)

This qualitative explanation is not of sufficient quality. Eugene Churazov
If you mean it seriously, this is actually a very good question. Minhyong Kim
This paper is a tour de farce. Ian Abel
What is modelling? You run a simulation, you compare. If it coincides, great! If it doesn't coincide, fuck! Felix Parra
I have seen papers where the student wasn't the problem. Michael Hardman
There has been a lot of fascinating work on this subject, most of it kind of boring. Philipp Kempski
So now you want us to drop everything we are doing and start worrying about what the big questions are?! Ian Abel
Oh dear, I thought I had some conclusions. Nuno Loureiro
I've got my little fingers inside this plasma. Steve Cowley
Words will play a big role in this talk. Dmitri Uzdensky
Everything that can be done should be done---and that's the astrophysical attitude. Michael Medvedev
What I will talk about is not low-hanging fruit. A lot of people have looked at this. There is no fruit here at all.---What about sour grapes? Michael Medvedev & Nuno Loureiro
In order to have a disappointment, you first have to have an appointment. Alex Schekochihin
In our experiment, we observed strong absence of magnetic energy. Archie Bott
Much as I somewhat hate this approach... Peter Davidson
Your infinity is my zero. Mantas Abazorius
If I had known the outcome of this calculation, I would never have done it. Michael Hardman

Now that everyone knows this is the new Pandora's box, they are all going to jump into it. Francois Rincon
We must think outside the axisymmetric box. Georgia Acton

This is not real, it's a Platonic absolute.---The real thing is more Platonic and more absolute. Alex Schekochihin & Anthony Field
All I've done here is sacrificed equality in favour of inequality. Per Helander
Generally, it depends. Steve Majeski
This numerical scheme works fine, but it is physically disgusting. Bruno Despres
This research is not only not finished, it has not really been started. Anatoly Spitkovsky

[these quotes are mostly from these seminars and the Vienna meetings]

Wk	Date	Time & place	Speaker & Topic	Background reading	Visitors in town
	Tue 5 Sept	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Seminar/Tutorial (organised by ALEX & VALERIAN) Nathan Teo (ASTAR, Singapore) --- Using Neural Networks to classify ELM events in DBS data	Neural Networks video-tutorial
	Toby Adkins goes to the University of Otago (NZ) as postdoc, to work with Jono Squire.
	Tue 12 Sept	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Journal Club (organised by ALEX & JUAN) 1) ETG turbulence in pedestals: Leo Turica will lead the discussion of the new paper on the subject by Walker & Hatch 2) Introduction to TAEs: J. Ruiz Ruiz will lead the discussion of two classic papers: Berk et al. (1992) and Fu & Cheng (1992)	1) PoP 30, 082307 (2023) 2) PFB 4, 1806 (1992) PFB 4, 3722 (1992) PoP 15, 055501 (2008) (review)
	Tue 19 Sept	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting/Journal Club (organised by ALEX) Interaction of fast ions with turbulent transport: 1) We shall discuss the 2023 papers by Di Siena et al. (critique of earlier numerical results by Mazzi et al. on suppression of transport by TAEs, which is also an experimental result reported both for JET and KSTAR), T.-S. Hahm et al. (an analytical model of said suppression), Qiu et al. (TAEs and zonal flows), and Citrin & Mantica (recent review of the state of the art) 2) Juan Ruiz Ruiz --- Update on new GK simulations of TAEs and transport 3) Toby Adkins --- Towards a slab model of TAE instabilities (TBC)	Nat Phys 18, 776 (2022) Nature 609, 269 (2022) arXiv:2306.10780 PoP 30, 072501 (2023) arXiv:2306.15579 PPCF 65, 033001 (2023)	Jeronimo Garcia (CEA)
-1	Tue 26 Sept	14:00 Freeman Room	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL) Michael Hardman (TE) and John Omotani (UKAEA) --- Update on the ExCALIBUR project: Fokker-Planck collisions and sheath physics with ExB drifts		Silvia Trinczek (Princeton)
	Thu 28 Sept	13:00 J Paton Room	Plasma Seminar (organised by MICHAEL) Silvia Trinczek (Princeton) --- Neoclassical transport in strong-gradient regions	JPP 89, 905890304 (2023)
	Aneesh Agrawal (summer intern with Archie Bott) goes back to Cambridge to continue his undergraduate degree in NatSci/Physics.
0	Tue 3 Oct	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Robbie Ewart & Patrick Reichherzer --- Report on the MIST2023 Conference (25-29 September, Cargese, Corsica)
0	Megan Evans and Lucas McConnell join the group as DPhil students, to works with Michael Barnes (Lucas's UKAEA co-adviser is John Omotani). Agi Wierzchucka joins the group as an MMathPhys student, to work with Alex Schekochihin on her dissertation. Barry Ginat (from Technion, Israel) joins the group as a Leverhulme-Peierls Fellow (supported in part by Alex Schekochihin's Simons Investigator grant). Mads Senstius (from DTU, Denmark) joins the group as Carlsberg Foundation Visiting Fellow, to work with Michael Barnes.
I	Tue 10 Oct	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL) Georgia Acton & Plamen Ivanov --- Report on the EFTC (Padua 2-5 October) and the TTF2023 Meeting (11-15 September, Nancy, France)
II	Tue 17 Oct	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) 1) Nick Lopez (Oxford) --- APS DPP practice talk + research update (Transport barriers in high-beta plasmas) 2) 15:00 Joint Plasma-ALP Seminar (organised by GIANLUCA) Arthur Pak (LLNL) --- Target gain >1 from inertial confinement fusion implosions at the National Ignition Facility	1) paper draft from author on request 2) PRL 131, 065101 (2023)	Ian Abel (Maryland) Steve Cowley (PPPL) Arthur Pak (LLNL) Felix Parra (PPPL)
III	Tue 24 Oct	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) 1) Michael Nastac (Oxford) --- APS DPP practice talk + research update (Phase-space turbulence in Vlasov-Poisson plasma) 2) 15:00 Joint Plasma-Astro Seminar (organised by STEVE BALBUS) Charles Gammie (Illinois) --- Fluctuations in accretion discs	1) paper draft from author on request 2) ApJ 906, 39 (2021) ApJ 951, 46 (2023)	Charles Gammie (Illinois)
IV	Tue 31 Oct	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Yujia Zhang (Oxford) --- Update on Dimits transitions in EM turbulence		Dmitri Uzdensky (CU Boulder)
IV	Robin Greif joins the group as a TDoTP postdoc. He has just received his PhD at IPP Garching.				Dmitri Uzdensky (CU Boulder)
V	Tue 7 Nov	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Nick Lopez, Michael Nastac & Juan Ruiz Ruiz --- Report on the APS DPP Annual Meeting (Denver, 30 October - 3 November)		Dmitri Uzdensky (CU Boulder)
VI	Tue 14 Nov	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Param Luhadiya and Om Gupta (Oxford) --- Reports on summer projects		Chris Hamilton (IAS Princeton)
VII	Tue 21 Nov	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Seminar (organised by ALEX) Alistair Arnold (IPP Greifswald) --- Electron kinetics in plasmoids	JPP 89, 905890203 (2023) arXiv:2310.05678	Alistair Arnold (IPP Greifswald) Chris Hamilton (IAS Princeton), J-B Fouvry, Mathieu Rule, Sofia Flores Morales (IAP, Paris)
VIII	Tue 28 Nov	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) Leo Turica (Oxford) --- ETG turbulence in pedestals: data and theory (transfer exam presentation)	transfer report from author on request	Chris Hamilton (IAS Princeton), Sofia Flores Morales (IAP, Paris)
9	Tue 5 Dec	10:30 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) David Hosking (Princeton) --- "Putting things on top of other things" (on nonlinear stability of magnetised astmospheres)	preprint from author on request	David Hosking (Princeton)
10	Tue 12 Dec	14:00 Freeman Room	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by JUAN) Open mic
	Tue 19 Dec	14:00 SL Room & ZOOM (ask Alex for link)	Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX) New Year resolutions
	Tue 26 Dec	No seminar. Merry Xmas!
	Tue 2 Jan	No seminar. Happy New Year!

Hilary Term of 2024