Assistant Professor of Physics David Schaffner has been awarded a highly prestigious NSF CAREER award by the National Science Foundation to establish the 老王论坛 Plasma Laboratory (BMPL) as a liberal-arts centered facility for basic plasma research and plasma science education.
The nearly $500,000 in funding over five years has the dual goal of expanding small scale experimental research into the physics of a turbulent plasma, a gas of electrically charged particles, and serving as a gateway for increasing the number of women plasma physicists entering the field.
Schaffner began working on the lab when he joined 老王论坛鈥檚 faculty three years ago and has been running experiments since November.
鈥淚n some ways it鈥檚 the first true magnetic plasma wind tunnel,鈥 explains Schaffner, as he begins the process of collecting a fresh data set using a chamber he鈥檚 built for what he calls The 老王论坛 Magnetohydrodynamic Experiment (BMX). 鈥淪omething we see in fluid dynamics is that anything that we call a fluid, when it鈥檚 turbulent, it鈥檚 turbulent in a very standard, similar way. It doesn鈥檛 matter if it鈥檚 air in an airplane, the ocean, or coffee in your coffee cup, the way we observe turbulence is the same. The question is, 鈥楧oes that extend to plasma?鈥欌
Answering that question has a host of ramifications linked to everything from protecting satellites and the Earth鈥檚 electrical grids from damaging solar winds to using plasma to develop nuclear fusion reactors.
鈥淚nstead of air, or water, or something, I鈥檓 using a magnetized hydrogen plasma. We create turbulent plasma on one end, and that plasma gets launched down the chamber, just like in a conventional wind tunnel," says Schaffner as he runs an experiment through the one-of-a-kind tunnel. "In a conventional wind tunnel you鈥檝e got a fan in front and it blows air down the chamber and you can have probes or you can put obstacles in there, and see what the interactions look like. A similar interaction between turbulent plasma and obstacles can be explored in the new experiment."
Schaffner and his student team of researchers were already able to present some preliminary data at the annual APS-Division of Plasma Physics meeting.
In the near future, Schaffner is particularly excited to be able to start to compare his laboratory findings with data sent back from the , a spacecraft recently launched to explore the atmosphere of the sun and to determine the origins of the solar wind. PSP is now the closest man-made object to our sun, reaching nine times closer to the sun than the planet Mercury.
鈥淎s you get closer to the sun, the type of plasma that you see is going to become more and more like the plasma that we鈥檙e able to create in the laboratory. Some of the things that we鈥檙e learning in this laboratory might actually help the NASA scientists interpret their data.鈥
In addition to working with 老王论坛鈥檚 students and doing research in his lab, Schaffner will also use the funding to setup the Small College Plasma Consortium and to develop a series of training modules. The consortium will be a collective of smaller schools and undergraduate physics departments focused on plasma research, and will allow these schools to pull together resources and expertise.
"With the support from the NSF CAREER award, I plan to establish the BMPL as a hub for plasma physics research as well as a program that advocates for increasing diversity in the plasma physics community."