Recent News


News: A pair of papers have been published in Nature Physics in 2023 to report experimental results using a newly developed laboratory platform to study magnetic reconnection at low plasma beta using capacitor coils powered by lasers. The first paper is titled "Non-thermal electron acceleration from magnetically driven reconnection in a laboratory plasma" and the second paper is titled "Ion and Electron Acoustic Bursts during Anti-Parallel Reconnection Driving by Lasers".  There is a News & Views story by Giovanni Lapenta on Nature Physics. Click here for a news story by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and click here for a news story by phys.org. Also, here is a news story by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and another news story by Laboratory of Laser Energetics, University of Rochester. These results were highlighted at Press Release at the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics meeting in Denver, October 30 to November 3, 2023.

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.

News: 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.

News: 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.

News: 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.

News: Starting on April 1, 2019, the new FLARE (Facility for Laboratory Reconnection Experiments) device will be moved to PPPL where it will be set up as a collaborative user facility, as part of extension of PPPL contract.

News: 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.

News: 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)

News: 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.

News: 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.

News: 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.

News: 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

News: 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.

News: 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.

News: 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."

News: Our NSF Physics Frontier Center, Center for Magnetic Self-organization in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas (CMSO) has won another competition for second 5 years from September 1, 2008 until August 31, 2013.

News: A letter paper has been published in "Nature" on hydrodynamic results from Magnetorotational Instability Experiment. (see paper from Nature website or preprint from Arxiv.org, introduction by S. Balbus, news story at "physorg.com" or "life, and the universe")

News: 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." 

News: 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." 

News: 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. 

News: 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."