Greg Hammett's Web Page

Fusion energy is a very challenging problem, but fusion scientists have been making progress and are pursuing several interesting ideas that could help make it more practical. My research interests include theory and computer simulations of plasma turbulence in fusion and astrophysical plasmas, and advanced computational algorithms.

Fun pictures and animations of computer simulations of plasma turbulence

I am a Principal Research Physicist and a Distinguished Research Fellow (since 2013) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (Room A137), a Lecturer With Rank of Professor in the Graduate Program in Plasma Physics at Princeton University, part of the Associated Faculty of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and a 1997 Fellow of the American Physical Society. I am part of the interdisciplinary Max-Planck/Princeton Center (MPPC) for plasma physics. More info is in my CV.

Gregory W. Hammett   <hammett@pppl.gov>   +1-609-243-2495   fax:-2662
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory MS27
P.O. Box 451
Princeton, NJ 08543

Papers

Presentations: Talks, posters, and white papers

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What's new:

May, 2009: "Vortex Waltz", an entry by graduate student Luc Peterson and I in the Princeton University Art of Science exhibit. Press coverage included the Italian newspaper Il Sole24Ore.

November, 2007: "Gyrokinetic Theory and Simulations of Experiments", G. W. Hammett, review talk, 2007 APS Division of Plasma Physics Annual Meeting, Orlando, Nov. 12-16.

General public interest:

Don't count out the old physicists.

"Current Status of Fusion Energy Research & Related Plasma Turbulence Studies", G.W. Hammett, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics", U.C. Santa Barbara, May 19, 2005. WebCam & Audio. This talk has a broad introduction aimed at physicists outside of fusion energy research.

Fusion Energy and Plasma Physics References
The FIRE Place fusion news, library, etc.
Computers, General Scientific Computing.
Declaration of Principles for scholars.
Ten Great Unsolved Problems in Physics (including Fusion Energy and Turbulence)
Interesting quotes from Feynman and others, on the challenge of objectivity in science, etc.
Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Various text files

Assorted course materials:

Note that I only have some of the course material online. We also use a number of books and other notes handed out in class.

Princeton graduate course AST559/APC539: Turbulence and Nonlinear Processes in Fluids and Plasmas (notes available only at Princeton, for now) 2011, 2014, 2018, 2020

Princeton graduate course AST560: Computational Plasma Physics (notes available only at Princeton, for now) 2015, 2017, 2019
Princeton graduate course AST554 Irreversible Processes in Plasmas (Princeton only, for now) 2007- (co-taught with Prof. John Krommes in 2001)
Princeton graduate course AST551/MAE541 General Plasma Physics I co-taught with Prof. Nat Fisch, 1995-2000, 2002-2005
My A Physics Formulary (incomplete, mostly plasma physics and math at this point. Foldable booklet version (for two-sided printing). LaTeX source files.
The MFE Formulary, a good collection initiated by Hartwig and Podpaly while they were Ph.D. students at MIT>
The NRL Plasma Formulary.
Computational Physics Tutorial given at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, 2001, with Prof. Bill Dorland.
Other assorted course notes on my PPPL web site or my my Princeton wiki pages (needs porting).

Technical info of interest to specialists:

Nonlinear continuum gyrokinetic codes: Jenko, Görler, Told et al. GENE code, Candy & Waltz's GYRO, Dorland & Kotschenreuther's GS2's wiki (Astro version: AstroGK).

Ammar Hakim, Eric Shi, and I are exploring several advanced methods, including certain types of Discontinuous Galerkin algorithms, that may be helpful in the difficult problem of simulating gyrokinetic turbulence in the edge region of fusion devices. See Ammar Hakim's Simulation Journal . The code is undergoing active development, and various versions (not only for gyrokinetics but for Vlasov-Poisson, Vlasov-Maxwell, multimoment plasma fluid, and Navier-Stokes)) are available in the Gkeyll bitbucket repo and related repos.

Some collaborators and other interesting fusion and plasma research sites:
Bill Dorland
Center for the Study of Plasma Microturbulence
Max-Planck/Princeton Center for Plasma Physics
Center for Multiscale Plasma Dynamics (CMPD) (before 2009)
Frank Jenko's group publication, Alex Schekochihin, Ian Abel, Michael Barnes
Some other fusion/plasma research sites: Edge Simulation Laboratory, Bruce Scott

A library of useful fusion documents.

Current grad students:

Previous grad students: Bill Dorland (1993) Mike Beer (1994), Stephen Smith (1997), Phil Snyder (1999), Emily Belli (2006), Prateek Sharma (2006), Luc Peterson (2011), Nadine Kremer (2012, Ulm University Diploma thesis), Jessica Baumgaertel (2012), Seth Davidovits (2cd year theory project, 2012), Erik Granstedt (2013), Eric Shi (2017), Tess Bernard (2019, U. Texas)

Publications (some online) on Gyrofluid Turbulence Simulations, etc. (My research specialty)

Gyrofluid Turbulence Simulations (My research specialty)

FTP archive of my FPPRF program.
Same FPPRF files.
Directory of various work collaborations, some incomplete drafts.
Directory of old stuff.

Other interests:
Kate's art
James Clerk Maxwell on Science and Philosophy

As when a gryfon through the wilderness...
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold...


-Milton, Paradise Lost

In Greek mythology, the griffin had the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, and jealously watched over a storehouse of gold in Scythia.