Research, teaching and public engagement in Physics at UW–Madison
Congrats to Vladimir Zhdankin, assistant professor of physics, on earning a Department of Energy Early Career award! The five-year award will fund his research on energy and entropy in collisionless, turbulent plasmas. Systems in equilibrium are easy to describe, but often the most interesting questions in nature are complex and dynamic. Most plasmas, including astrophysical …
Physics Faculty Attend Major Plasma Physics Conference in Atlanta By Christopher Woolford, Physics PhD student Over 200 faculty and students represented the University of Wisconsin–Madison at the annual American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics (DPP) research conference in Atlanta last October. The APS DPP conference presents an excellent opportunity to learn about the newest …
Congrats to Prof. Rogerio Jorge who was awarded his first grant as a professor! The three-year, $500,000 National Science Foundation grant, titled “Moment Approach to Multiscale Plasmas,” will be used to fund a graduate student and postdoc on the project. “Astrophysical plasmas appear in more than 90% of the universe — for example, on the …
If net-positive fusion energy is to ever be achieved, density is key: the more atomic nuclei crashing into each other the more efficient the reaction will be. Nearly 40 years ago, Martin Greenwald identified a density limit above which tokamak plasmas become unstable, and the so-called Greenwald limit has at best been exceeded by a …
A fusion device at the University of Wisconsin–Madison generated plasma for the first time Monday, opening a door to making the highly anticipated, carbon-free energy source a reality. Over the past four years, a team of UW–Madison physicists and engineers has been constructing and testing the fusion energy device, known as WHAM (Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric …
Congrats to (now) Dr. Cristian Vega who won the Callen Award for Excellence in Theoretical Plasma Physics Research! Vega won the award on April 29, just days before defending his thesis on May 3. The Callen Award is awarded annually to a UW–Madison plasma physics graduate student for achievements in plasma theory. Now-retired Professor Emeritus …