Plasma Physics news
Scientists Generate Black Hole Radiation in the Lab
Dec 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Due to their violent nature and long distance from Earth, black holes and their surroundings are very difficult to study. Currently, the main method to observe a black hole is to use an X-ray ...
Upping the power triggers an ordered helical plasma
Nov 02, 2009 |
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If you keep twisting a straight elastic string, at some moment it starts kinking in a wild way. Something similar occurs when one increases the electrical current flowing in a magnetized plasma doughnut: it ...
High-performance plasmas may make reliable, efficient fusion power a reality
Nov 02, 2009 |
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In the quest to produce nuclear fusion energy, researchers from the DIII-D National Fusion Facility have recently confirmed long-standing theoretical predictions that performance, efficiency and reliability ...
Electron self-injection into an evolving plasma bubble
Nov 02, 2009 |
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Particle accelerators are among the largest and most expensive scientific instruments. Thirty years ago, theorists John Dawson and Toshiki Tajima proposed an idea for making them thousands of times smaller: ...
Laser-plasma accelerators ride on Einstein's shoulders
Nov 02, 2009 |
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Using Einstein's theory of special relativity to speedup computer simulations, scientists have designed laser-plasma accelerators with energies of 10 billion electron volts (GeV) and beyond. These systems, ...
Roadrunner supercomputer models nonlinear physics of high-power lasers
Oct 28, 2009 |
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For years scientists have struggled with the difficult physics of inertial confinement fusion. This is the attempt to compress a target capsule containing isotopes of hydrogen with high-powered lasers to high enough pressure ...
INL scientist is harnessing the power of plasma
Oct 27, 2009 |
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Most schoolchildren learn that everything in the universe is a solid, a liquid or a gas. But those lessons miss the fourth and by far most common state of matter: plasma.
On the road to fusion energy, an accelerator to study warm dense matter
Oct 16, 2009 |
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Imagine yourself at the core of Jupiter, a planet 300 times the mass of Earth. At 35,000 degrees Fahrenheit, you and I might think it's hot in here, but to a physicist it's merely warm - warm dense matter, ...
Going plasmonic in search of faster computing, communications
Oct 16, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of European researchers has demonstrated some of the first commercially viable plasmonic devices, paving the way for a new era of high-speed communications and computing in which electronic ...
U.S. ITER awards contracts worth $33 million for materials for ITER's largest magnets
Oct 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The U.S. ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has awarded two contracts totaling $33.6 million for 8,270 km of niobium tin strand and 4,795 km of copper strand for the Toroidal Field Conductor, ...
Going With the Flow: Using Star Power to Better Understand Fusion
Sep 11, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- UC San Diego researchers are using “star” power to help ignite the field of fusion, which is being looked at as a future reliable green energy source. Under a new $5.8 million five-year grant ...
High in Sodium: Highly Charged Tungsten Ions May Diagnose Fusion Energy Reactors
Sep 08, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Just as health-food manufacturers work on developing the best possible sodium substitutes for low-salt diets, physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have acquired ...
Researcher uses 100,000 degree heat to study plasma
Sep 02, 2009 |
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Using one of the greatest sources of radiation energy created by man, University of Nevada, Reno researcher and faculty member Roberto Mancini is studying ultra-high temperature and non-equilibrium plasmas ...
Signs of ideal surfing conditions spotted in ocean of solar wind
Aug 31, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Warwick have found what could be the signal of ideal wave "surfing" conditions for individual particles within the massive turbulent ocean of the solar wind. The discovery ...
Cool plasma packs heat against biofilms
Jun 11, 2009 |
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Though it looks like a tiny purple blowtorch, a pencil-sized plume of plasma on the tip of a small probe remains at room temperature as it swiftly dismantles tough bacterial colonies deep inside a human tooth. But it's not ...
