Research Unit 1048

PostGraduate Schools

• MHD Dynamos in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas, Bochum, February 15-19, 2010

  Motivation

  Magnetic fields are known to play important roles in astrophysical systems on all scales and in all environments, from the star formation process and stellar flares, to compact objects and the heliosphere, and from large-scale magnetic fields in galaxies to clusters of galaxies. Key questions in astrophysics today are directly linked to magnetic fields such as the collimated outflows in jets, which are most likely responsible for the acceleation of the most energetic particles in the Universe. Given this omnipresence and the importance for the most energetic processes it is very surprising to see how little is known about the generation of the observed cosmic magnetic fields and their turbulence. Crucial in our understanding of the observed properties is the dynamo process, the most likely mechanism considered viable to generate and maintain the observed magnetic field properties. However, the detailed physics of this non-linear process is not well understood either. An understanding of "real" dynamos is meanwhile considered a fundamental problem in physics. Therefore, several laboratory experiments have been designed to study the process in more detail. This school tries to cover all these different aspects in a series of introductory lectures. Complementary first-hand information on special topics will be given by experts in the field. A general introduction to plasma physics will be followed by lectures on experiments and theory of MHD dynamos as well as the structure and turbulence of magnetic fields covering scales from laboratories to galaxies. The school is directed at PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in plasma- and astrophysics.

• Computational Plasma Physics, Bochum, September 6-9, 2010

  Motivation

  The school is directed at PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in plasma- and astrophysics, who will have the chance to learn and practice methods commonly used in this field. The topics of the school will cover

  • Computational infrastructure (Makefiles, version control, IDEs)

  • Hyperbolic systems (Riemann solvers, wave propagation methods, CWENO)

  • Particle in Cell and Vlasov simulations (Boris push, charge deposition, Darwin approximation)

  • Parallel programming (OpenMP, MPI, CUDA)

Workshops

• Kinetic Processes in Plasma: Instabilities, Turbulence and Transport, Bochum, November 08-11, 2010

  Motivation

  This workshop aims to generate a fruitful exchange of ideas from recent theoretical results and numerical experiments in the field of kinetic plasma turbulence, instabilities and transport. In astrophysical and fusion plasmas the underlying phyiscs is essentially kinetic precluding the use of hydrodynamic models only to some asymptotic approaches. A complete description of collective processes in such plasma systems is based on kinetic equations for the electron and ion distribution functions in a multidimensional phase space and Maxwell&prima;s equations, whose sources are self-consistent moments of the distribution functions. Collective processes spread over a very wide range of spatial and temporal scales and lead to turbulence, dissipations, shocks, coherent structures and spontaneous electromagnetic emissions. The topics addressed will coverthese aspects including linear and nonlinear plasma models. Numerical experiments, often critical for the confirmation of theory and observations will be present with the most challenging methods (PIC simulations). Applications of the kinetic approaches to various experiments and space plasma projects will be considered.

• Modern Trends in Theoretical Plasma Physics, Bochum, February 21-22, 2011

  Motivation

  This workshop aims to bring together world leading experts in the fields of

  • Eulerian and Lagrangian turbulence

  • Kinetic and fluid descriptions of plasmas

  • Energetic particles and transport properties

  • High Performance Computations of fluids and plasmas .