Study of Nonlinear Interaction and Turbulence of Alfven Waves in LAPD Experiments

该奖项是为了响应提交给NSF/DoE基础等离子体科学与工程合作伙伴关系NSF 08-589联合招标的提案。该奖项提供资金，以支持本科生参与整体研究工作，这是由能源部单独资助[OFES科学报告#09ER55049]。该项目致力于大型等离子体装置（LAPD）中Alfven波的非线性相互作用和湍流的分析和数值研究，LAPD是加州大学洛杉矶分校基础等离子体科学设施（BAPSF）的一部分。建议的研究的目的是扩大不可压缩磁流体动力学湍流等离子体湍流的结果，并在提供分析和数值支持的实验Alfvenic湍流在LAPD进行。 研究将与教学紧密结合。 建议在研究生阶段开设新的《MHD湍流》课程，在研究生和高年级本科生阶段开设新的《等离子体天体物理》课程。这些课程将反映拟议研究的跨学科性质，并将满足物理，天文学和工程系的学生。该项目的一个重要组成部分是最先进的分析和数值方法与实验室研究的有效整合，这是培养研究生和本科生不可或缺的。该NSF奖项为参与该研究项目的研究生研究助理提供旅行支持。

This award is made in response to a proposal submitted to and reviewed under the NSF/DoE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering joint solicitation NSF 08-589. The award provides funds to support undergraduate participation in the overall research effort, which is being funded separately by the DoE [OFES Science report #09ER55049]. The project is devoted to analytic and numerical study of nonlinear interaction and turbulence of Alfven waves in the Large Plasma Device (LAPD) which is a part of the Basic Plasma Science Facility (BAPSF) at UCLA. The proposed research is aimed at extending the results obtained for incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence to plasma turbulence, and at providing analytic and numerical support to the experiments on Alfvenic turbulence conducted in LAPD. The research will be strongly integrated with teaching. It is proposed to develop the new course onMHD Turbulence on the graduate level, and the new course on Plasma Astrophysics for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. The courses will reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the proposed research, and will cater to students in Physics, Astronomy and Engineering Departments. An essential part of the project is effective integration of state-of-the art analytic and numerical methods with laboratory studies, which is indispensable in training graduate and undergraduate student. This NSF award provides travel support for the Graduate Research Assistant involved with this research project.