Events at Physics |
Events on Monday, April 4th, 2011
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- Have Process will Travel: Adventures in Plasma Astrophysics
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Anatoly Spitkovsky, Princeton University
- Abstract: As plasmas underly most of astrophysical phenomena, understanding how
the relevant plasma processes operate in detail can, in principle,
provide powerful constraints on astrophysical models. In practice,
such applications have been non-trivial due to the disparity of scales
between plasma microphysics and astronomical environments. I will
present several examples of situations where the intrinsically
microscopic physics has a direct imprint on macroscopic
observables, and show how the improved models of plasma physics can
guide the development of astronomical scenarios. Examples will be
drawn from particle acceleration in collisionless shocks, relativistic
reconnection in pulsars, and the decay of magnetized turbulence in
accretion disks.