Theme Group 3
• Space Physics
– Four faculty
– Experimental/observational space physics
• Plasma Physics
– Ten faculty
– Theoretical and experimental efforts
• Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos
– Six faculty (one on leave to ICTP – Trieste)
– Theoretical and experimental efforts
• Biophysics
– Two faculty (overlapping with statistical physics and NLD above)
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Space Physics
• Faculty
–
–
–
–
George Gloeckler (Distinguished University Prof.)
Glenn Mason (Prof.)
Doug Hamilton (Prof.)
Eun-suk Seo (Asst. Prof.)
• Research scientists
– Fred Ipavich (Senior Res. Sci.)
– Mihir Desai (Assoc. Res. Sci.)
– Matthew Hill (Asst. Res. Sci.)
Theme Group 3
March 2005
University of Maryland
Dept. of Physics
Space Physics Group
Missions
at Saturn
Cassini
ACE
400
SOHO
Wind
Geotail
SAMPEX
300
Ulysses
AMPTE
at sola r pol es
at sola r pol es
ISEE-3/ICE
Mean Sunspot Number
Voyager 1/2
200
IMP-8
Cycle 22
100
Cycle 20/21 + 22 years
0
1986
1990
1994
1998
Year
2002
2006
plo tted : 8/12/0 3
The University of Maryland Space Physics Group studies topics of space plasma
physics by developing innovative instrumentation for satellites and deep space probes
that determine ion elemental, isotopic, and charge state composition over a broad
energy range from 10 eV to 100 MeV. Research interests include universal elemental
and isotopic abundances, particle acceleration processes in nature, solar wind formation,
origins of magnetospheric plasma, and propagation of energetic particles in the
heliosphere. The Group currently has 14 instruments operating on 10 different spacecraft.
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Model of the
Heliosphere
Temperature of the solar
wind and interstellar plasma
400 AU
Flux (1/cm2 -s-sr-MeV)
600 AU
Averaging Interval:
11/9/02-12/31/02
U. Maryland Low Energy Particle Telescope (LEPT) first detects Voyager 1’s
approach to the solar wind termination shock at 85 AU in 2002
700 keV - 600 MeV
H++ 
H
He++ 
He
O++ 
O
new component
Kinetic Energy (MeV)
Heliopause
200 AU
Heliosheath
Termination Shock
•
Sun
0
Zank & Müller 2003
-600 AU
T(K):
8 000
40 000
-400 AU
200 000
-200 AU
0
Voyager 1
200 AU
1 000 000
Theme Group 3
March 2005
U. Maryland Charge Energy Mass Spectrometer (CHEMS) on Cassini
records “fingerprints” of ion composition at Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn
Earth
Saturn
Jupiter
100
Aug. 18, 1999
High
Charge
C,N,O
July 1, 2004
Jan. 10, 2001
S
++
4+
S
3+
S
++
S
+
C
O
+
++
O
O
+
mass (amu)
2
10
He
++
He
+
He
N
H
+
++
He
+
3+
O
++
O
+
O
He
++
He
+
+
+
O & water group
O
+
H
H
+
+
H
1
+
2
mass per
charge
(amu/e)
1
10
100
1
10
Theme Group 3
100
1
10
March 2005
100
Space Physics
• Young scientists
– One graduate student
– Five undergraduates
– One post-doc.
• Well funded
• Issues
– Retirements (Mason and Gloeckler in 2005)
– New hires
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Plasma Physics
• Faculty - Theory
–
–
–
–
Antonsen, Dorland (Assistant)
Drake, Hassam
Liu (on leave), Papadopoulos
Sagdeev (DUP)
• Faculty – Experiments
– Derek Boyd, Richard Ellis (Assoc.)
– Howard Milchberg, Adil Hassam
• Research scientists
– Guzdar, Nusinovich, Shay (asst.), Sitnov (asst.)
– Hans Griem, Alan DeSilva, Ray Elton
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Theory and Simulation of Ultra-Intense Laser Pulses in Gas and Plasma T.
Antonsen & H. Milchberg
Projects
• relativistic self-focusing and
Raman instability in plasmas
• coherent ionization scattering
instability
• resonant heating of clusters
• nonlinear optics if gasses of
exploding clusters
• efficient simulation algorithms
Applications
• plasma based particle accelerators
• X-Ray sources
Laser Pulse
Simulation of Ionization
Scattering Instabilty
Theme Group 3
March 2005
The MARYLAND CENTRIFUGAL EXPERIMENT (MCX)
An experiment to test a novel concept for magnetic fusion
Conventional:
“bead” held to closed magnetic loop
Innovation:
bead held centrifugally to rotating,
“shaped coat-hanger” magnetic line
Magnetic mirror, azimuthal rotation
Minimum requirements:
• Supersonic Rotation
• No destructive instabilities
Achievements to date:
• Rotation at > Mach 3
• Steady operation for > 1000
instability growth times
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Magnetic Reconnection
•
The annihilation of oppositely directed magnetic fields through magnetic
reconnection is the dominant process for dissipation magnetic energy in
laboratory plasma experiments and the universe as a whole.
– One of the key scientific topics in the field of plasma physics.
•
Prof. Drake, Dr. Shay, colleagues and students at UMCP have played a lead role
in the development of a new theoretical model of magnetic reconnection.
– The essence of this model has now been confirmed in measurements in laboratory
experiments and satellites in the Earth’s magnetosphere.
•
Signficant scientific questions such as how reconnection produces the large
number of energetic particles observed in data remain to be answered.
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Turbulence in Hot, Magnetized Plasma
Gyrokinetics for astrophysics and magnetic confinement fusion research
Many astrophysical plasmas, like plasmas created in
the laboratory in the magnetic confinement fusion
program, are essentially collisionless.
Nonlinearity, long mean-free-path physics, waveparticle resonances and non-trivial geometries
are important elements of calculations.
Principal Achievements:
• Major theory support for several
laboratory expts, in US and
internationally
• First predictions of particle and
Visualization from UM simulation
electron energy transport
of turbulence in Princeton’s NSTX expt.
• Only fully electromagnetic code for this
kind of turbu- lence. Allows calculation Critical Contributions:
of heating in hot accretion flows, where • Turbulence-induced fluxes,
heating
B0 is relatively weak.
• Fluctuation spectra for expt. tests
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Grad Students, PostDocs, Visitors
• 16 Grad students, all supported
• 6 Undergrads
• 6 PhD’s in last 5 years
• 1 Postdoc
• 4 Visitors
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Funding
• Total Annual Funding: $2.52M
–
–
–
–
DOE = 1.12M
NSF = 0.48M
ONR = 0.48M
NASA = 0.54M
– MURI = 9.8M
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Current Research Focus of Theory Group
- Areas of Leadership for Future
• Turbulence in Magnetized Plasmas and Transport
– Fusion, Astrophysics, Solar Wind
• Reconnection and Rearrangement of Magnetic Fields and production
of energetic particles
– Fusion, Astrophysics, Solar-Terrestrial
FUSION SCIENCE CENTER, “Center for Multiscale Dynamics”, $1.4M
collaboration with UCLA,
• Innovations in Confinement for Fusion
MCX
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Plasma Theorists and Experimentalists
are closely coupled
• MCX (Ellis)
- Hassam
• LASER-PLASMA (Milchberg)
- Antonsen
• TOKAMAKS (PPL, GA, MIT)
Drake
- Dorland, Guzdar,
• RECONNECTION EXPTS (several)
Theme Group 3
- Drake
March 2005
Project Personnel/Funding
Intense Laser – Matter Interactions
PI : Milchberg
Physics Dept Collaborators : Antonsen
NSF, DOE, misc : ~600 K$/yr - 1 post doc, ~5 grad students
Maryland Centrifugal Experiment
PIs : Ellis, Hassam
Physics Dept Collaborators : Griem, DeSilva, Elton
DOE : ~ 400 K$/yr - 2 post docs, 3 grad students
Plasma Spectroscopy
PI : Griem, Elton
DOE, NSF : ~ 300 K$/yr – 1 post doc
Strongly Coupled Plasmas
PIs : DeSilva, Griem
NSF : ~ 130K$/yr
Electron Measurements on DIII-D Tokamak
PI : Ellis
DOE/GA : ~ 30 K$/yr
Theme Group 3
March 2005
SUMMARY
• Plasma Theory and Experiment at UM are
integrally coupled
• There is unanimous agreement between
theorists and experimentalists that Plasma
Physics at UM would be greatly enhanced by
the addition of a young experimentalist
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos
• Faculty
–
–
–
–
–
–
Wolfgang Losert (Asst. Prof.)
Daniel Lathrop (Assoc. Prof.)
Rajarshi Roy (Prof.)
K.R. Sreenivasan (Dist. Univ. Prof – on leave to ICTP)
Ed Ott (Dist. Univ. Prof.)
James Yorke (Dist. Univ. Prof.)
• Research scientists
– Parvez Guzdar (Senior Res. Sci.)
– Istvan Szunyogh (Assoc. Res. Sci.)
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics
Faculty (in Physics)
Students
5+1 (theory and experiment)
>30
Intellectual Community on Campus
- Physics (Condensed Matter Phyiscs, Plasma Physics,…)
- Mathematics
- Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST)
- Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics (IREAP)
Collaborations with nearby laboratories NASA, NIST, NIH, NRL
National/International collaborations
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Students in Nonlinear Dynamics
Theoretical
Experimental
S. J. Baek - Globally coupled chaotic systems
Romulus Breban - Phase synchronization, fractal
basin boundaries
Somantika Datta - Chaos
Chris Danforth - Weather prediction, shadowing
Ian Frommer - Dynamics of network traffic
Angela Grant - Chaotic dynamics
J. T. Halbert - Chaos
John Harlim - Weather prediction
Ryan Lance - Dynamics of network traffic
Su Li - Chaotic billiards
Mike Oczkowski - Weather prediction
Will Ott - Dynamical systems
Jonathan Ozik - Dynamics of granular media
Brandy Rapatski - Modeling the AIDS epidemic
Juan G. Restrepo - Branching networks
Suzanne Sindi - Genomics
Yue-Kin Tsang - Two dimensional turbulence
Cevat Ustun - Genomics
Xing "Henry" Zheng - Wave Chaos
Aleksey Zimin - Weather prediction, genomics
Greg Bewley - Cryogenic Turbulence
Peter Bradford - Biophysics
Matt Ferguson - Biophysics
Kaveri Joshi - Sodium Convection
Bhaskar Khubchandani - Pulse propigation in optical
fibers
Min-Young Kim - Semiconductor laser dynamics
Wing-Shun Lam - Semiconductor laser dynamics
Dan Lanterman - Dynamo magentic field generation
Kyuyong Lee - Crystal growth patterns
Ryan McAllister - Synchronization of chaotic lasers
Michael Newey - Dynamics of granular media
Elizabeth Rogers - Fiber laser dynamics, spatio-temporal
chaos
Woodrow Shew - Dynamo magnetic field generation
Dan Sisan - Dynamo magnetic field generation
Justin Stambaugh - Dynamics of magnetized particle
ensembles
Nicolas Taberlet - Dynamics of granular media
Masahiro Toiya - Dynamics of granular media
Santiago Triana - Dynamo magnetic field generation
Dan Zimmerman - Dynamo magnetic field generation
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Success Stories
• The term “Chaos”
• Control of Chaos
• Weather Prediction (new)
• #1 Ranking in Nonlinear Dynamics
• Careers of past grad students from faculty jobs
to Wall Street
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos in Physics
• Areas:
–
–
–
–
–
Fluid Dynamics (advection, turbulence, granular flow)
Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics
Quantum Chaos
Nonlinear Optics
Spatio-temporal Dynamics (Universality of spatial
patterns e.g. spirals, stripes)
– Weather Prediction
– Biophysics
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics
Geometric Fractals
Biodynamics
Communication through Chaos
Theme Group 3
Dynamos
March 2005
Fluid Turbulence
Eutectic Crystal Growth
Controlling material micro
and nanostructure with light
Grain boundaries guided by light
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Nonlinear Dynamics Geophysics
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos
• Theory retirements likely
• New theory hires could be at world-class level
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Biophysics
• Faculty (in Physics – joint w/ IPST)
–
–
–
–
–
Michael Fisher (theory, molecular motors)
Wolfgang Losert (experiment, cell motility, nonlinear dynamics)
New hire 2005 (experiment, TBD)
New hire 2006 (experiment?)
Faculty in Chemistry (Thirumalai, Lorimer, Munoz, Beckett), Biology
(Columbini, Sukharev)
• Post-Docs
– Erin Rericha (cell motility)
– MEF Postdoc
• Graduate Students in Physics
– 3 Students – experiment, 3 Students - joint w/ NIH
– MEF students
• Undergraduates
– 3 students and one high school student
• Biophysics Graduate Partnership Program with NIH
• Funding: ONR, NSF, NIH
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Dynamics of Biomaterials
• Aim: Analyze the dynamics of complex
biological structures
• Analytical Tools:
– Nonlinear dynamics (theory of pattern formation)
– Far from equilibrium dynamics (fluctuation theorems)
• Experimental Techniques:
– Two-photon confocal for 3D imaging and
perturbations of the interior of samples
– Holographic laser tweezer array for the manipulation
of complex systems of biomaterials
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Optical micromanipulation with holographic laser
tweezers
1
2
3
4
• Manipulation of cells with
multiple holographic
tweezers
Turning carbon nanotubes
with optical vortices
Theme Group 3
March 2005
Biophysics - Research Program
• Optical Biophysics Lab – studies of cell motility
– Tools to image and micromanipulate mechanics and
biochemistry of moving cells: Holographic laser tweezers and
two-photon confocal microscope.
• Honors/ Awards:
– Student Research Achievement Awards at the Biophysical
Society Meeting 2004 and 2005.
• Future Directions
– Graduate Biophysics Program in IPST
– Undergraduate Biophysics Track in Physics
– Graduate and undergraduate Biophysics Course (in Physics)
• Limiting Issues
– Low Quality of space – no air/gas/distilled water lines, no shared
ice, -80oC freezers, autoclave…
– No shared lab and sample preparation facilities / lab technician
Theme Group 3
March 2005