Latest Plasma physics Stories

Temperature and energy equipartition in cosmic plasmas explained Why the temperatures in the solar wind are almost the same in certain directions, and why different energy densities are practically identical, was until now not clear. With a new approach to calculating instability criteria for plasmas, Bochum researchers lead by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Schlickeiser (Chair for Theoretical Physics IV) have solved both problems at once. They were the first to incorporate the effects of collisions...

[ Watch the Video ] Lunar researchers have been struggling with the mystery for years, and they may have finally found a solution. But first, what is an ionosphere? Every terrestrial planet with an atmosphere has one.  High above the planet’s rocky surface where the atmosphere meets the vacuum of space, ultraviolet rays from the sun break apart atoms of air.  This creates a layer of ionized gas--an "ionosphere." Here on Earth, the ionosphere has a big impact on communications...

Space around Earth is anything but a barren vacuum. The area seethes with electric and magnetic fields that change constantly. Charged particles flow through, moving energy around, creating electric currents, and producing the aurora. Many of these particles stream in from the solar wind, starting out 93 million miles away on the surface of the sun. But some areas are dominated by particles of a more local source: Earth's atmosphere. These are the particles being watched by FASTSAT's...

News from the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics Recent experiments carried out at the DIII-D tokamak in San Diego have allowed scientists to observe how fusion plasmas spontaneously turn off the plasma turbulence responsible for most of the heat loss in plasmas confined by toroidal magnetic fields. Using a new microwave instrument based on the same principles as police radar guns, researchers from UCLA observed the complex interplay between plasma turbulence and...

News from the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics Research on the Alcator C-Mod experiment at MIT has made an unexpected connection between two seemingly unrelated but important phenomena observed in tokamak plasmas: spontaneous plasma rotation and the global energy confinement of the plasma. Self-generated flows, the spontaneous plasma rotation which arises even when there is no external momentum input, can have a strong beneficial effect on plasma transport and...

News from the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics A key challenge in producing fusion energy is confining the plasma long enough for the ionized hydrogen to fuse and produce net power. Suppressing plasma turbulence is one approach to this, but the resulting increase in energy confinement is usually accompanied by undesirable increases in particle and impurity confinement, which can lead to plasma contamination and ash accumulation—and reduced power. At MIT's Alcator...

[ Watch the Video ] Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather – great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun – some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth. Citing the accurate fact that solar activity is currently ramping up in its standard 11-year cycle, there are those who believe that 2012 could be coincident with such a flare. But this...

News from the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics A fusion reactor operates best when the hot plasma inside it consists only of fusion fuel (hydrogen's heavy isotopes, deuterium and tritium), much as a car runs best with a clean engine. But fusion fuel reactions at the heart of magnetic fusion reactors also create leftovers—helium "ash." The buildup of this helium ash and other impurities can cool the hot plasma and reduce fusion power. Research at the MIT Plasma...

News from the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics A major upgrade to the DIII-D tokamak fusion reactor operated by General Atomics in San Diego will enable it to develop fusion plasmas that can burn indefinitely. Researchers installed a movable, 30-ton particle-beam heating system that drives electric current over a broad cross section of the magnetically confined plasma inside the reactor's vacuum vessel. Precise aiming of this beamline allows scientists to vary the...

News from the 53rd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics To achieve nuclear fusion for practical energy production, scientists often use magnetic fields to confine plasma. This creates a magnetic (or more precisely "magneto-hydrodynamic") fluid in which plasma is tied to magnetic field lines, and where regions of plasma can be isolated and heated to very high temperatures—typically 10 times hotter than the core of the sun! At these temperatures the plasma is nearly...