Anomalous Difusion in the Collisionless Solar Wind Plasma

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The Principal Investigator (PI) will investigate the anomalous diffusion of energetic charged particles in fusion, space, and astrophysical plasmas using a combination of theory, simulations, and observations. He intends to focus on the role of non-classical (non-Gaussian) phenomena in anomalous diffusion in the collisionless solar wind, specifically the magnetic field-line random walk of energetic charged particles in the solar wind. In this investigation, the PI will develop and test theories for the non-classical magnetic field-line random walk and energetic charged particle diffusive transport, including a numerical kinetic transport model to solve the standard cosmic ray equation (modified to include fractional derivative terms for non-classical anomalous diffusion). The PI will recruit and supervise a graduate student to work on a Ph.D. thesis as part of this project, and he will encourage minority graduate students to apply. The PI plans to include this graduate student as an integral participant in the analysis of non-Gaussian anomalous transport of energetic charged particles at collisionless shocks. In this way, the project will link research and education and contribute to the training of the next generation of space plasma physicists.