Events at Physics |
Events During the Week of January 28th through February 4th, 2024
Monday, January 29th, 2024
- Plasma Physics (Physics/ECE/NE 922) Seminar
- Challenges and opportunities associated with first principal optimal design of fusion energy systems
- Time: 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm
- Place: 1227 Engineering Hall
- Speaker: Prof. Andrew Christlieb, Michigan State University
- Abstract: In this talk, I am going to start out very broad and define the multi-scale challenges associated with the goal of creating the mathematical tools that would enable optimal design of fusion energy systems. The twin challenges of the cursive dimensionality and the need for structure preserving representations will play a central theme. I will highlight work going on across the Center for Hierarchical and Robust Modeling of Non-Equilibrium Transport (CHaRMNET), a DoE MMICC center, targeted at addressing these issues. In the latter half of my talk I will introduce the development of blended computing. The goal in blended computing is the development of an augmented low fidelity model that produces high fidelity results at the cost of the low fidelity model. Here we are working in 1D with the BGK model of kinetic theory. In this context, we are developing structure preserving machine learning surrogates to close the Grad moment expansion with high fidelity kinetic data. Here, structure preserving means that the model maintains the necessary hyperbolic structure for long-time stability of the model, among other structure preserving properties. This framework was developed as part of CHaRMNET and is being transitioned to Los Alamos National Lab for reduced modeling of Fokker Planck descriptions of capsule implosion of inertial confinement fusion energy (IFE) systems.
- Host: Prof. Carl Sovinec
- Thesis Defense
- MULTI-SCALE INTERACTIONS OF TEARING MODES WITH MICROTURBULENCE AND ITG SATURATION-CHANNEL SELECTION
- Time: 2:30 pm - 4:30 pm
- Place: B343 Sterling or
- Speaker: Taweesak Jitsuk, Physics Graduate Student
- Abstract: Global tearing modes (TMs) can interact among themselves or with small-scale instabilities, exerting profound influence on fusion plasma performance. Experiments in reversed-field pinches (RFPs) demonstrate that TMs couple, cascade, and cause robust transport, while partial suppression of their activity can result in enhanced confinement. The presence of unstable drift waves during the TM cascade in the RFP allows interactions with microinstabilities. Local gyrokinetic simulations with externally imposed magnetic perturbations modeling TMs have demonstrated that the magnetic perturbations erode zonal flows that are nonlinearly generated by the microinstabilities, resulting in higher turbulence levels. Similarly, when resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) are applied to mitigate edge-localized modes in tokamaks, the RMPs suppress the zonal flows, which in turn can increase the heat flux. These phenomena highlight the importance of multi-scale interactions between large-scale magnetic fluctuations and zonal-flow-regulated microturbulence, an incompletely understood topic. For a comprehensive understanding of these interactions, self-consistent computations simultaneously evolving TMs and small-scale fluctuations are needed. Here, calculations are performed with the global gyrokinetic code GENE, which was modified to include a background current density. This provides the TM drive, and it is verified that the modified GENE code properly models global TMs. Working towards multi-scale simulations, a non-reversed RFP discharge is studied; linear simulations show that the non-reversed equilibrium is unstable to large-scale TMs, which dominate in the core region, while small-scale density-gradient-driven-TEMs dominate near the plasma edge. Nonlinear simulations with only TMs show that large-scale TMs in the core are coupled and excite smaller-scale stable TMs. The latter resonates at rational surfaces closer to the edge, where density-gradient-driven-TEMs are active, indicating that multi-scale interactions are possible. In nonlinear global density-gradient-driven-TEM simulations, zonal flows dominate the saturated state, leading to negligible transport in the absence of TMs, consistent with local simulations. When TMs and TEMs are simultaneously included in nonlinear simulations, TMs partially erode zonal flows. This erosion of zonal flows disrupts energy mediation by zonal flows, leading to a significant increase in heat flux. However, the zonal flows remain a dominant characteristic of fluctuations, causing the transport fluxes to remain much smaller than in experiments. To quantitatively reproduce experiments in future work, higher density gradients are required to weaken the zonal flows, or a stronger TM drive is needed to intensify the magnetic perturbations. These multi-scale simulations offer valuable insights for understanding RFP experiments and studying potential interactions of MHD phenomena and microturbulence in tokamaks. In contrast to TEM behavior, static magnetic perturbations do not strongly affect the ITG-driven turbulence of RFPs. This is because the ITG in RFPs is characterized by a slab limit and does not rely as strongly on zonal flows for saturation; instead, it depends on marginal modes. Zonal flows, on the other hand, play a crucial role in toroidal-ITG saturation. This prompts the exploration of saturation-channel selection rules that capture the preference of the toroidal limit for zonal flows and of the slab limit for marginal modes. Nonlinear coupling quantities are determined, and the triplet correlation time and mode overlap results are presented. Combining these metrics allows for predicting the dominant saturation channel for a given physical-parameter scenario, providing a powerful new tool that will aid a deeper understanding of nonlinear interactions and may also be used to enhance reduced models of anomalous transport.
- Host: Paul Terry
Tuesday, January 30th, 2024
- Network in Neutrinos, Nuclear Astrophysics, and Symmetries (N3AS) Seminar
- Explaining nonlinearities in black hole ringdowns from symmetries
- Time: 2:00 pm
- Place: Join Zoom Meeting Meeting ID: 912 3071 4547
- Speaker: Antonio Riotto , Geneva U
- Abstract: It has been recently pointed out that nonlinear effects are necessary to model the ringdown stage of the gravitational waveform produced by the merger of two black holes giving rise to a remnant Kerr black hole. We show that this nonlinear behavior is explained, both on the qualitative and quantitative level, by near-horizon symmetries of the Kerr black hole within the Kerr/CFT correspondence.
- Host: Baha Balantekin
Wednesday, January 31st, 2024
- No events scheduled
Thursday, February 1st, 2024
- R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar
- Dissipative mechanisms in SNS junctions and magnetic vortex lattices
- Time: 10:00 am
- Place: 5310 Chamberlin
- Speaker: Tony Liu, U Washington
- Abstract: In superconductors there is a mechanism of dissipation which is related to the motion of quasiparticle energy levels and is similar to the Debye mechanism of microwave absorption in gases. The dissipation rate associated with this Debye-like mechanism is controlled by the inelastic relaxation time, and in some cases, it can dominate conventional dissipation mechanisms which are controlled by the elastic relaxation time. To illustrate this effect, I will discuss the role of this Debye-like mechanism in the I-V characteristics of SNS junctions as well as the microwave absorption of disordered magnetic vortex lattices. In the former, I will show that there is a new regime at small voltages/currents where the I-V characteristics are controlled entirely by the density of states in the SNS junction and are characterized by a large conductance proportional to the inelastic relaxation time. In the latter, I will show that the microwave absorption coefficient at small frequencies is similarly controlled by the inelastic relaxation time, and that it is significantly larger than the value obtained in the conventional Bardeen-Stephen picture.
- Host: Alex Levchenko
- NPAC (Nuclear/Particle/Astro/Cosmo) Forum
- Low-energy Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations
- Time: 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
- Place:
- Speaker: Kevin Kelly , Texas A&M University
- Abstract: Neutrino oscillation physics is a rich phenomenon, especially when any of the following is true: the neutrinos have low energy, the travel distance is large, and interactions with matter are significant along the path of propagation. All three of these criteria are met in low-energy atmospheric neutrino oscillations. I will demonstrate how this class of oscillations is exciting for several applications, and discuss which next-generations are best suited to exploit such measurements.
- Host: Sanjib Kumar Agarwalla
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Bursty star formation: physical drivers and implications for JWST observations of high-redshift galaxies
- Time: 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
- Place: 4421 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Chris Hayward, CCA
- Abstract: A complete theory of galaxy formation requires understanding the details of how gas is converted into stars over cosmic time, which is affected by gas supply, star formation, and feedback-driven outflows. Based on the results of state-of-the-art cosmological zoom simulations, I will argue that galaxy formation is a violent process: at high redshift, stellar feedback causes all star-forming galaxies to undergo rapid fluctuations in their star formation rates on ~10-Myr timescales. Bursts of star formation are followed by strong outflows, which cause the star formation rate to drop precipitously. Fresh gas supply from galactic fountains rejuvenates star formation and restarts the cycle. At z ~ 1, simulations of massive galaxies exhibit a qualitative transition: outflows are no longer driven effectively, and the galaxies transition to steadily star-forming, well-order disk galaxies. I will discuss the physical causes of bursty star formation and the aforementioned transition to time-steady star formation, in addition to some implications for JWST observations of high-redshift galaxies.
- Host: Ke Zhang
- Theory Seminar (High Energy/Cosmology)
- Novel Methods for the Detection of Dark Matter
- Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: 5280 Chamberlin Hall
- Speaker: Carlos Blanco, Princeton University
- Host: Lisa Everett
Friday, February 2nd, 2024
- Physics Department Colloquium
- Effective field theories of thermalizing systems
- Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
- Place: Chamberlin 2241
- Speaker: Luca Delacretaz, University of Chicago
- Abstract: Hydrodynamics – broadly understood as the late-time dynamics of conserved densities – is distinguished by its sparing assumption: thermalization. Its applications are therefore widespread, ranging from spin chains to galaxies. I will argue that hydrodynamics should be viewed as an effective field theory, similar to chiral perturbation theory in particle physics. This perspective allows for precision tests of thermalization in many-body systems, offers guidance and benchmarks for costly quantum simulations, and leads to surprising predictions including "diffusion cascades" and large density fluctuations in quantum Hall edges. I will end by showing how these effective field theory techniques can be used to prove a conjectured "Planckian bound" on thermalization: the equilibration time of many-body systems cannot be shorter than the quantum limit \hbar/T.
- Host: Ilya Esterlis