Recent News
On November
3rd, 2022, I shared a 2022
Edison Patent Awards in the category of Industrial Processes by Research
& Development Council of New Jersey on our patent titled
"Advanced Liquid Centrifuge Using Differentially Rotating Cylinders and
Optimized Boundary Conditions, and Methods for the Separation of Fluids"
(U.S. Patent
10,300,410 B2). Click here
for a news story.
After
more than 20 years of continued effort, observation of magnetorotational
instability or MRI have been finally reported from our liquid metal
experiment. On September 7, 2022, a letter paper titled "Observation
of Axisymmetric Standard Magnetorotational Instability in the
Laboratory," by Y. Wang, E. Gilson, F. Ebrahimi, J. Goodman, and
H. Ji, has been published in Physical Review Letters. Interestingly, a
non-axisymmetric mode has been also reported in a paper published on
August 9, 2022 in Nature Communications: "Identification
of a non-axisymmetric mode in laboratory experiments searching for
standard magnetorotational instability" by Y. Wang, E. Gilson, F.
Ebrahimi, J. Goodman, K. Caspary, H. Winarto, and H. Ji. Click here
for a news story by APS and click here
for a news story by physicsworld.
Also,
here is a
news story by Princeton University, another
version of it by PPPL, as well as how
does it work and its long
history. The
results were also highlighted at Press
Release at the American Physical Society Division of Plasma
Physics meeting in Spokane, October 17 to 21, 2022.
On February 7,
2022, a "roadmap" review titled "Magnetic
reconnection in the era of exascale computing and multiscale
experiments," by H. Ji, W. Daughton, J. Jara-Almonte, A. Le, A.
Stanier, and J. Yoo has been published online in Nature Reviews Physics
(the accepted version is also posted on arXiv).
The web summary reads: "Magnetic reconnection explosively releases
stored magnetic energy in astrophysical plasmas. Thanks to advances in
observations, exascale computing and multiscale experiments, it will be
possible to solve outstanding physics problems, including the immense
separation between global and dissipation scales, reconnection onset,
and particle acceleration." The mutiscale experiments here include our FLARE
(Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments) device.
On November 25,
2020, the FLARE (Facility for
Laboratory Reconnection Experiments) device has been successfully
installed in its new test cell in PPPL. Click here
for a few photos.
On Sunday March
4th, 2018 at 8:13pm in the Jadwin Hall high bay of Princeton University,
we have successfully achieved first plasma on FLARE
(Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments), concluding 4
years of the construction activity. Here is a
short news story.
A letter paper
has been published in "Nature" on
December 23, 2015 on the subject of flux rope stability in relation to
Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from Magnetic
Reconnection Experiment (MRX). (see paper
from Nature website)
A
short commentary has been published in the issue of Feb 27, 2015
of "Science"
on a numerical work by Matsumoto
et al. on a new scenario to accelerate electrons to extreme
energies by a strong collisionless shock undergoing turbulent
reconnection.
An intermediate
facility, FLARE (Facility for
Laboratory Reconnection Experiments), is funded for construction
from 2013 to 2016 at Princeton University by the NSF Major Research
Instrumentation Program. The goal of FLARE project is to provide
experimental accesses to new regimes of magnetic reconnection and
associated phenomena directly relevant to heliophysics, astrophysics,
and fusion plasmas.
2012
US-Japan Workshop on Magnetic Reconnection (MR2012) was
successfully held at Princeton University, New Jersey, from May 23 to
May 25, 2012. Since the first meeting of this meeting series held also
in Princeton back in 1998, scientists from multiple communities,
laboratory plasma physics, space plasma physics, solar plasma physics,
and astrophysics came together to present and discuss their latest
results on the subject of magnetic reconnection. More than 70 scientists
from around world attended this meeting and their presentation slides
and recorded videos can be found here.
11th
International
Workshop on the Interrelationship between Plama Experiments in the
Laboratory and in Space (IPELS) was successfully held in Whistler,
British Columbia, Canada from July 10 to July 15, 2011. As a 20-year old
tradition, we aim to bring together active members of the laboratory,
space and astrophysics plasma physics communities from around the world
to foster intellectual interaction and scientific collaboration
addressing the processes responsible for various common plasma
phenomena. About 100 scientists, including students, from around the
world attended the meeting, celebrated the history and progress and also
looked into the future. (click here
for more details.)s
A reported
titled "Research Opportunities in Plasma Astrophysics" has been released
in August 2010, based on "Workshop
on Opportunities in Plasma Astrophysics" or WOPA held at
Princeton, New Jersey, on January 18-21, 2010. The goal is to articulate
a unified, comprehensive set of major questions and research
opportunities in the broad areas of plasma astrophysics. Ten major
questions were generated by this community activity.
A new Center
for
Momentum Transport & Flow Organization (CMTFO) in Plasmas and
Magnetofluids has been established in September 2009 as a Plasma
Science Center sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Energy Office
of Fusion Energy Sciences. The CMTFO brings together astrophysical
and magnetic fusion theorists, experimentalists and computationalists
from multiple institutions. Working across a range of experiments
extending from liquid metal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and small
laboratory plasmas to large magnetic confinement devices, Center
researchers are examining the link between turbulent momentum transport
and large scale flow self-organization using newly developed diagnostic
and data analysis techniques, and are investigating and testing emerging
theoretical and computational models.
I was awarded a
Distinguished
Research Fellow by PPPL on March 23, 2009. The
award citation reads, "For his
pioneering research including the elucidating of the underlying
physics of magnetic reconnection in plasmas, and his leadership in
exploring the magnetorotational instability."
I
was elected in October 2004 as a Fellow
of the American
Physical
Society upon the recommendation
of the Division
of Plasma Physics (news
release). The citation reads, "For
seminal contributions of experimental research on basic physical
processes important to both laboratory and astrophysical plasmas,
including dynamo effects, magnetic reconnection, magnetic helicity
conservation, and magnetorotational instability."
I
shared the
2003 Kaul Foundation Prize for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research and
Technology Development by
Princeton University. (news
release) The award citation
reads, "For the thorough
experimental investigation of driven magnetic reconnection in a
laboratory plasma. In this work, careful diagnostic studies of the
current sheet structure and dynamics, ion heating, and associated wave
activity have provided a major advance in the understanding of
reconnection processes in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas."
A new
Center for Magnetic Self-Organization in Laboratory and Astrophysical
Plasmas has been established on
September 15, 2003 to investigate fundamental processes in laboratory
and astrophysical plasmas, including dynamo, magnetic reconnection,
conservation of magnetic helicity, angular momentum transport, ion
heating and magnetic chaos. The Center is funded as a Physics Frontier
Center by National Science Fundation in coordination with the Department
of Energy.
I
shared the 2002 Award
for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research
by the Division
of Plasma Physics of the American
Physical
Society. (news
release) The award citation
reads, "For the experimental
investigation of driven magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma. In
this work, careful diagnostic studies of the current sheet structure,
dynamics and associated wave activity provide a comprehensive picture of
the reconnection process."