Wave particle interactions in magnetospheres- new insights from nonlinear theory

About this event

This workshop will feature a plenary talk by Warwick IAS visiting Professor Yoshiharu Omura (University of Kyoto) and will focus on new insights into the physics of WPI. The near earth plasma environment has its own space weather which can affect critical systems at earth such as communications and position, navigation and timing. These functions are served by satellites which can be vulnerable to high energy particles, and wave-particle interactions are a key acceleration and scattering mechanism. Understanding these acceleration mechanisms is central to the modelling needed to predict space weather impacts. There is also strong crossover with magnetically confined plasmas for fusion energy, where for example ion cyclotron emission from fusion ash has been proposed as a diagnostic for a burning plasma. Whilst quasi-linear diffusion has hitherto been the mainstay of modelling WPI on longer timescales, there are now observations of very efficient acceleration and depletion of relativistic electrons due to coherent nonlinear wave-particle interaction in a short-time scale.