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. "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;

  Trinity Term & Summer of 2018

The seminars/group meetings will be on Thursday at 11:30 in Jack Paton Room, Beecroft Building, except where indicated otherwise below.
Note also the ALP Seminars (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

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 us 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 the sake of fairness, let me mention that some people have objections to this, none of which are particularly valid. Chris Chen
 It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. Maynard Keynes 

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
Too simple? At the end of my talk, you will beg for simplicity! Andrey Beresnyak
The point is not the point! Anonymous
This is why I am presenting this here and nowhere else: nothing is solved! Ian Abel
This calculation is not intellectual masturbation: there's no orgasm. Anonymous
There are many big Buts here... I like big Buts. Anonymous
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 and 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. François Rincon
You can never be too happy with the state of your closure. Amitava Bhattacharjee
For this plot, 1 is 6.--- Weeell, not even. Steve Cowley and Steve Balbus
Это качественное объяснение недостаточно качественное. Eugene Churazov
If you mean it seriously, this is actually a very good question. Minhyong Kim
[these quotes are mostly from Oxford plasma seminars and Vienna meetings]

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

Thu
Apr 12
No seminar
0
 Thu
Apr 19.
 11:30
501
DWB 		Plasma Group Meeting (organised by FELIX)
Free discussion

I
 Thu
Apr 26
 11:30
501
DWB		 Plasma Seminar (organised by GIANLUCA & ALEX)
Ravindra Kumar (TIFR) --- Ultrafast dynamics of hot, dense plasmas created by relativistic-intensity, femtosecond lasers
I will present the femtosecond/picosecond dynamics of the hot, dense matter created by 30 femtosecond, relativistic intensity, 800 nm laser pulses. Specific examples presented will include (a) mapping the lifetime of dense, relativistic electron bunches in a solid via picosecond gated Cherenkov emission and (b) shock propagation and shock control.
PRL 120, 065001 (2018)
PoP 24, 072702 (2017)
PRL 114, 115001 (2015)
 Ravindra Kumar
(TIFR)
II
 Thu
May 3
 11:30
J. Paton
Rm
 Plasma Seminar (organised by FELIX)
Jesus Ramos (MIT) --- Landau damping of sound waves in kinetic magnetohydrodynamics
 JPP 83, 725830601 (2017)
 Ravi Kumar
(TIFR)
Jesus Ramos
(MIT)
III
 Thu
May 10
 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Seminar (organised by ALEX)
Luca Franci (Queen Mary) --- TBA/TBC
Luca Franci
(Queen Mary)
IV
 Thu
May 17
 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Seminar (organised by MICHAEL)
Will Potter (Oxford Astro) --- Magnetisation and reconnection rates in jets (TBC)
 arXiv:1610.08321
V
 Thu
May 24
 11:30
501
DWB		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX)
Plamen Ivanov --- Zonal flows and drift waves: recent progress, in Oxford and elsewhere (TBC)
 PoP 25, 012308 (2018)
PPCF 59, 055002 (2017)
JPP 83, 905830504 (2017)
PoP 25, 022505 (2018)
arXiv:1802.08519
VI
 Thu
May 31
 11:30
501
DWB		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by ALEX)
Toby Adkins (Oxford) --- Collisionless relaxation, Dupree's phase-space turbulence etc. (TBC)
 MMathPhys
report from
author on request
VII
 Thu
June 7.
 11:30
501
DWB		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL)
TBA

VIII
 Thu
June 14
 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Seminar (organised by ALEX)
Anatoly Neishtadt (Loughborough) --- Long term behaviour of slow-fast systems with passages through resonances: examples from charged particles dynamics
Bill Dorland
(Maryland)
Anatoly Neishtadt
(Loughborough)
9
 Thu
June 21
 11:30
501
DWB		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by FELIX)
TBA


Thu
June 28		 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL)
TBA
Ivan Calvo
(CIEMAT)

Thu/Fri
July 5-6
 Rudolf Peierls Symposium for Theoretical Physics
 Ivan Calvo
(CIEMAT)
Ben Chandran
(UNH)
Nuno Loureiro
(MIT)
Eliot Quataert
(UC Berkeley)

July 9-13
 Planets, Stars and Discs: A Golden Age for Particle and Gas Dynamics (Celebrating the 70th birthday of John Papaloizou)
 Ivan Calvo
(CIEMAT)
Ben Chandran
(UNH)
Thu
July 12
 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Seminar (organised by ALEX)
Ben Chandran (UNH) --- TBA/TBC

Thu
July 19		 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by FELIX)
TBA


Thu
July 26.
 11:30
J. Paton
Rm		 Plasma Group Meeting (organised by MICHAEL)
TBA


Thu
  Aug 2
 No seminar