A Kinetic Investigation of Plasma Instabilities Driven By Energetic Particles

高能粒子驱动的等离子体不稳定性的动力学研究

• 批准号: 2010240
• 负责人: Damiano Caprioli
• 金额: $ 45万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-07-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2010240&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Kinetic; Investigation; Plasma; Instabilities; Driven; Kinetic; Investigation; Plasma; Instabilities; Driven

This project will enable better understanding of the generation of cosmic rays throughout the Universe. The Universe is permeated with plasma, an ionized gas where magnetic fields and charged particles evolve under their mutual interaction. A small fraction of the charged particles may be accelerated to very large energies and, despite being less than one percent in number, affect the overall plasma in a prominent way. The project aims to study via controlled, self-consistent numerical plasma simulations the processes through which such energetic particles generate and are impacted by magnetic fields in the solar system and other astrophysical environments. The project will train graduate and undergraduate students, with particular emphasis on attracting underrepresented minorities into the field, while the new knowledge is likely to improve our ability to predict space weather and may impact design of future fusion reactors.Non-thermal particles can be produced via several different physical phenomena such as shocks, magnetic reconnection, and turbulence, tapping into the free energy of the system, be it kinetic or magnetic. The streaming of solar energetic particles in the heliosphere and cosmic rays in astrophysical contexts naturally produces a restoring back-reaction in the thermal plasma, which leads to tangling/amplification of the initial magnetic field. Kinetic particle-in-cell simulations will be used to quantify ab-initio the self-generated scattering of the energetic particles and how energy is partitioned into electromagnetic fields, plasma heating, and bulk motions. Instabilities driven by energetic ions and electrons are key to the phenomenology of diverse space/astrophysical environments, such as collisionless shocks, the solar wind, and pulsar wind nebulae.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.

该项目将使整个宇宙的宇宙射线产生更好。 宇宙被等离子体渗透，等离子体是一种离子气体，其中磁场和带电的颗粒在相互相互作用下进化。一小部分带电的颗粒可能会加速到非常大的能量，尽管数量不到百分之一，但以突出的方式影响整体血浆。 该项目旨在通过受控的，自洽的数值等离子体模拟这种能量颗粒产生并受到太阳系和其他天体物理环境中磁场的影响的过程。 该项目将培训毕业生和本科生，特别是要吸引代表性不足的少数群体进入该领域，而新知识可能会提高我们预测太空天气的能力，并可能影响未来的融合反应堆的设计。可以通过几种不同的物理现象来产生任何不同的物理现象，例如冲击，磁性重新连接，重新连接，磁性，和磁力，将其变成系统，可以启用系统。天体物理环境中太阳能和宇宙射线中太阳能颗粒的流数自然会在热等离子体中恢复后反应，从而导致初始磁场的缠结/扩增。动力学粒子中的模拟将用于量化能量颗粒的自构散射以及如何将能量分配到电磁场，等离子体加热和散装运动中。充满活力的离子和电子驱动的不稳定性是不同空间/天体物理环境的现象学的关键，例如无碰撞冲击，太阳能风和脉冲星星云。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过基金会的知识优点和广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务。