Max-Planck-Princeton Center for Plasma Physics: A Collaboration in Plasma Astrophysics

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Most of the visible matter in the Universe is a plasma, that is a dilute gas of ions, electrons, and neutral particles. Many fundamental and important physical processes that occur in plasmas remain poorly understood. This, in turn, limits our ability to understand diverse phenomena in space such as how stars form or how the particles flowing from the Sun affect the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere. It also impacts our ability to engineer and operate experiments on Earth such as magnetically confined fusion devices. The Max-Panck Princeton Center for Plasma Physics (MPPC) was established as a joint venture of the Max Planck Society in Germany, Princeton University, and the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in order to forge new collaborations between Universities, the national plasma labs, and international partners in order to investigate some of the most pressing problems in plasma physics. By supporting students and early career scientists, the MPPC serves to train the next generation of experimental, computational, and theoretical plasma physicists, and its international scope provides unique training for early career scientists. The center provides unique opportunities for the public, as well as students and teachers at public and regional schools, to engage in scientific inquiry in ways that enhance their understanding of science concepts and scientific ways of thinking through a well established outreach program at PPPL.The MPPC effort at Princeton University is focused on three cross-cutting problems in plasma astrophysics: cosmic ray transport and feedback, the interplay between turbulence and reconnection, and dynamo action in accretion disks, stellar convection, and galaxies. New fluid closure models for cosmic rays will be developed and applied to models of the interstellar medium in galaxies to understand the role of cosmic-ray feedback on galaxy formation. New theoretical and computational studies of magnetic field amplification by dynamo action driven by the magneto-rotational instability in accretion disks, and convection in rotating stars, will be undertaken. Using new computational tools developed by members of the MPPC, new studies of plasma turbulence in the kinetic regime, relevant to conditions in the solar wind, will be developed. The Center fosters interdisciplinary collaboration between the plasma and astrophysics communities, as well as international collaboration between these communities in the US, Germany, and elsewhere. Its international scope provides unique training for graduate students and postdocs. This award provides renewed support for Princeton University's participation in MPPC, with support for PPPL's participation provided by the Department of Energy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.