Frontier Geoplasma Research
Abstract
The Center for Theoretical Geo/Cosmo Plasma Physics was established by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in 1986 through a DoD University Research Initiative (URI) Grant via keen national competition. The goal of the center since its inception has been to develop and maintain a program of excellence in interdisciplinary space plasma research involving the mutual interactions of collaborating members of a select group of space scientists, plasma physicists, mathematicians and numerical analysts. During the past several years, under the grant title, "Frontier Geoplasma Research", members of the center have made seminal contributions to a number of definitive research findings related to the phenomena of intermittent plasma turbulence, forced and/or self-organized criticality, global acceleration of the solar wind and polar wind, sporadic localized reconnections in the magnetotail and in the auroral zone, charged particle energization through wave-particle interactions, the black aurora I curls, multi-scale evolutions, magnetosphere/ionosphere coupling, and the theory of complexity in space plasmas. Some of the results of these research activities have already found practical applications toward the missions of the United States Air Force, primarily through the collaborating efforts between the center members and members of the research group headed by Dr. J. R. Jasperse at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 2003
- Accession Number
- ADA414351
Entities
People
- Tom T. Chang
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology