University of Maryland College Park, MD • May 20-21, 2019
(Location: The Hotel at the University of Maryland)
Co-chairs: Howard Milchberg (Univ. of Maryland) and Earl Scime (West Virginia Univ.)
The meeting organizers gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Office of Naval Research.
Workshop Agenda Discussions and Videos
Important Dates:
- Deadline for online registration: May 13, 2019, 11:50 PM, ET
- Deadline to make reservations at The Hotel at the group rate: April 19, 2019
Visa Information:
Overseas workshop participants should familiarize themselves with visa requirements well in advance of the workshop. Here are some useful resources:
U.S. Department of State = http://www.state.gov/
- The majority of overseas attendees will be eligible for the "Visa Waiver Program." Details can be found at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/us-visas/tourism-visit/visa-waiver-program.html.
For those who need an official invitation letter to obtain a visa from the U.S. Embassy, please email us at PlasmaFacilitiesWorkshop@umd.edu
Workshop charge:
The Workshop will aim to address the following questions (the "charge" of the Workshop):
- What are the science questions that require establishment and operation of plasma science user facilities, and cannot be addressed on smaller scale single-PI experimental facilities? Are there compelling plasma science questions of such value and interest to the global scientific community that may warrant construction and operation of a new major NSF user facility? If so, what are they?
- Under constrained resources, what are the upsides and the downsides of investing in the operation of user facilities in each of the relevant sub-fields?
- What may be the limiting factors, e.g., the size of the community of potential users or the flexibility and ease of operation, in establishing an experimental facility as a user facility?
- Are there particular challenges to transparent operation of user facilities specific to plasma science or any of its sub-fields? If so, what are they and what strategies or modes of operation may be used to overcome such challenges?
- What are best practices for managing transparent and efficient operation of a plasma science user facility for mid-scale and major user facilities?
Workshop goals:
- Identify and discuss compelling topics in plasma physics that require facilities larger than typically operated by single-PI groups.
- Discuss lessons learned from the operation of open user facilities, collaborative facilities, user networks, and larger single/few PI facilities in the plasma physics and related scientific communities. Extract from the discussion guidance to be offered to potential future facilities, NSF, and other agencies regarding what works well.
- Discuss advantages and disadvantages for investments in user facilities under constrained resources.
Workshop format (2 days):
- First day: Presentations on science topics, moderated discussions, breakout sessions
- Second day: Presentations on facilities' experiences and best practices, moderated discussions, breakout sessions, recap from science areas
Topic areas and participants:
1. Quantum properties of dense plasmas
2. Plasma in super-critical fields
3. Single component plasmas, dusty plasmas, and matter-antimatter plasmas
4. Laboratory astrophysics
5. Relativistic laser and beam plasma interactions
6. Coherent structures and energy dissipation in plasmas
7. Controlled production of chemical reactivity
1. Quantum properties of dense plasmas
How and under what conditions do quantum properties such as spin and band structure control the behavior of dense plasmas? How and under what conditions are quantum effects and strong coupling effects linked? To study these questions, does one need physical conditions that can only be supplied by a major facility such as a big laser? Will the answers be sufficiently universal for broad application to planetary science, astrophysics, and earthbound applications in laser- and particle beam-driven fusion, or more everyday processes such as laser welding/machining and high current switches?
| Sam Vinko* | Univ. Oxford |
| Rip Collins* | Univ. Rochester |
| Yuan Ping | LLNL |
| Shanti Deemyad | Univ. Utah |
| James Colgan | LANL |
| Russ Hemley | George Washington Univ. |
| Jon Eggert | LLNL |
| Eva Zurek | Univ. Buffalo |
| Mike Desjarlais | Sandia National Lab |
| Farhat Beg | UCSD |
| Mingsheng Wei | Univ. Rochester (LLE) |
| Emma McBride | SLAC |
| *Co-leads |
2. Plasma in super-critical fields
How can we study the physics of electromagnetic fields that exceed the QED-critical field strength and its effect on plasma in a laboratory setting? What are the important physical effects at such field strengths and do we have the theoretical tools to describe them properly? How will advancements in this field affect our understanding of astrophysics and future experiments at high energy-densities?
| Alec Thomas* | Univ. Michigan |
| Stepan Bulanov* | LBNL |
| Gerald Dunne | Univ. Connecticut |
| Sebastian Meuren | PPPL |
| Matthias Fuchs | Univ. Nebraska Lincoln |
| Alex Arefiev | UCSD |
| Stuart Mangles | Imperial College |
| Marija Vranic | IST (Portugal) |
| Matthias Marklund | Chalmers (Sweden) |
| *Co-leads |
3. Single component plasmas, dusty plasmas, and matter-antimatter plasmas
What tests of fundamental plasma theories are enabled by such plasmas, e.g., collisions, transport, shielding? Can exotic, many-body interactions of astrophysical significance be modeled in such systems? How can such systems provide tests of fundamental concepts of mass?
| Joel Fajans* | UC Berkeley |
| Eve Stenson* | Max Planck Inst. |
| Allen Mills | UC Riverside |
| Dan Dubin | UCSD |
| Lars Jorgensen | CERN |
| Hui Chen | LLNL |
| Ed Thomas | Auburn Univ. |
| Francois Anderegg | UCSD |
| Scott Baalrud | Univ. Iowa |
| *Co-leads |
What are the most pressing and interesting astrophysical problems that can be reasonably represented in a laboratory plasma setting? What are the most important scaling analogies enabling laboratory experiments? What general type of lab facilities are needed (single PI, mid-scale shared, large scale shared)?
| Carolyn Kuranz* | Univ. Michigan |
| Petros Tzeferacos* | Univ. Chicago |
| Maria Gatu Johnson | MIT |
| Cary Forest | Univ. Wisconsin |
| Bruce Remington | LLNL |
| Bill Dorland | Univ. Maryland |
| Chris Niemann | UCLA |
| June Wicks | Johns Hopkins Univ. |
| Tom White | Univ. Nevada Reno |
| Federico Fiuza | Stanford Univ. |
| Adam Frank | Univ. Rochester |
| Karen O'Neil | Green Bank Observatory |
| David Schaffner | Bryn Mawr |
| *Co-leads |
5. Relativistic laser and beam plasma interactions
What unique photon and particle beams can such interactions produce? Can such interactions be used to produce unique plasmas? Can such interactions be used to control the six dimensional phase space of ultra- bright particle beams? What physics is required to be understood for such interactions to generate plasmas, photon beams, or particle beams for tools for scientific discovery? What user facilities and software capability are needed to develop this basic physics understanding?
| Felicie Albert* | LLNL |
| Warren Mori* | UCLA |
| Chan Joshi | UCLA |
| Karl Krushelnick | Univ. Michigan |
| Mike Downer | Univ. Texas |
| Dan Gordon | Naval Research Lab |
| Bob Cauble | LLNL |
| Tom Antonsen | Univ. Maryland |
| Nat Fisch | PPPL |
| Dustin Froula | Univ. Rochester |
| Doug Schumacher | Ohio State Univ. |
| Jorge Vieira | IST (Portugal) |
| Don Umstadter | Univ. Nebraska Lincoln |
| Jorge Rocca | Colorado State Univ. |
| Cameron Geddes | LBNL |
| *Co-leads |
6. Coherent structures and energy dissipation in plasmas
What are the most pressing questions about the processes whereby energy is transferred from fields and waves to particles in collisionless plasmas? Will understanding dissipation in turbulent plasmas have broad applications to fluid turbulence, astrophysics, and strongly magnetized, collisionless plasmas? Under what conditions do coherent structures emerge from nonlinearly interacting waves and fields? What scale of experiment would be required to inform the science of multi-messenger astrophysics, or to investigate coherent structure formation?
| Jim Drake* | Univ. Maryland |
| Mike Brown* | Swarthmore |
| Bill Matthaeus | Univ. Delaware |
| Troy Carter | UCLA |
| Greg Howes | Univ. Iowa |
| Jan Egedal | Univ. Wisconsin |
| Bill Daughton | Los Alamos National Lab |
| Li-Jen Chen | NASA-GSFC |
| Mel Goldstein | NASA-GSFC |
| Paul Cassak | West Virginia Univ. |
| Fred Skiff | Univ. Iowa |
| Craig Kletzing | Univ. Iowa |
| Bill Amatucci | Naval Research Lab |
| Saikat Thakur | UCSD |
| Ivo Furno | EPFL (Switzerland) |
| Yevgeny Raitses | PPPL |
| David Newman | Univ. Alaska Fairbanks |
| Erik Tejero | Naval Research Lab |
| *Co-leads |
7. Controlled production of chemical reactivity
Initial studies suggest that plasmas affect living systems through many of the same pathways typically identified for chemical/biological interactions. What scale of laboratory facility is required to provide the diagnostic tools required to make progress in understanding the mechanisms responsible for the physiological effects created by plasmas interacting with living systems?
| Mark Kushner* | Univ. Michigan |
| Steven Shannon* | North Carolina State Univ. |
| Ed Barnat | Sandia National Labs |
| Gottlieb Oehrlein | Univ. Maryland |
| Igor Adamovich | Ohio State Univ. |
| Igor Kaganovich | PPPL |
| Chunqi Jiang | Old Dominion Univ. |
| John Foster | Univ. Michigan |
| Peter Bruggeman | Univ. Minnesota |
| Vincent Donnely | Univ. Houston |
| Uwe Konopka | Auburn Univ. |
| *Co-leads |
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