Space Physics Seminar - winter-2015

Jan. 9, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Martin Connors - Athabasca

Seminar Description coming soon.

Jan. 16, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Shahab Fatemi - Berkeley

Seminar Description coming soon.

Jan. 23, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Quintin Schiller - Colorado

The Colorado Student Space Weather Experiment (CSSWE) is a 3U CubeSat designed, built, tested, and operated by students at the University of Colorado. CSSWE was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in September, 2012; its fully successful mission currently ongoing and overlapping with the Van Allen Probes, THEMIS, and BARREL. Onboard CSSWE is a particle telescope designed to measure energetic particles in Earth's magnetosphere, such as electrons in the outer radiation belt. From its low altitude, high inclination orbit, CSSWE observes the particles as they precipitate into Earth's atmosphere. The low altitude measurements, in conjunction with equatorial observations, are used to better understand the competing loss and source processes that make the outer radiation belt a dynamic, unpredictable region.

Jan. 30, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• David Sibeck - NASA Goddard

Seminar Description coming soon.

Feb. 6, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Brian Walsh -

Seminar Description coming soon.

Feb. 13, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Mitsuo Oka - UC Berkeley

Seminar Description coming soon.

Feb. 20, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Frank Jenko - UCLA

An emerging Grand Challenge in space and astrophysics is to understand the energy dissipation processes in turbulent systems, from the solar wind to black hole accretion disks. Inspired by new exciting observations, new theoretical ideas, and new computational capabilities, more and more researchers draw their attention to this key problem. While the large-scale dynamics of turbulent plasmas is often well captured by magneto-hydrodynamics, small-scale dissipation processes like plasma heating or particle acceleration via turbulent reconnection call for a kinetic treatment. In this talk I will describe recent progress in the areas of gyrokinetic, hybrid, and fully kinetic theoretical studies of turbulent energy dissipation. One can expect that in the next years, we will see transformative changes in this exciting area of physics.

Feb. 27, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Baptiste Cecconi - Observatoire de Paris

Low frequency planetary radio emissions are powerful phenomena produced by plasma instabilities at all magnetized planets (Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and even Ganymede). They occur when free energy appear in the distribution function of energetic particles. The main family of planetary radio emissions are the auroral radio emissions, linked to particle precipitations in the auroral regions on magnetized planets. Those radio emissions are thus intrinsically linked to the general dynamics of the magnetospheres, which is controlled either by external forcing (the solar wind), or internal sources (Io at Jupiter) or both. After a quick presentation of the auroral planetary radio emissions, the presentation will be divided into two parts: the study of an interplanetary shock observed throughout the heliosphere, thanks to in situ and remote sensing observations; and the presentation of the Cassini/RPWS instrument, as a typical advanced space radio observatory featuring goniopolarimetric capabilities. The future developments of low frequency radio astronomy, both on the instrumental side and on the database and data sharing side.

March 6, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Herb Carlson - Utah State University

As recently as 1980 the polar cap was thought to be a dark benign uninteresting backwater of near-earth space. As satellites became increasingly used for communication and navigation, unexpected and unexplained outages of these planned capabilities in polar regions changed all that. As sensors of increasing sensitivity populated high latitude and polar regions, they unveiled a sky filled with blazing aurora (visible to image intensified systems), and transient jets of plasma flow that significantly impact earth’s space plasma and neutral upper atmosphere, even satellite drag, and disclosed a space laboratory for discovery still being richly tapped to this day. We do a brief tour of some of the more interesting natural phenomena discovered, such as the role of solar wind, magnetic reconnection, magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere coupling in driving high latitude disturbances. Input-response experiments over scales of kilometers to Earth radii are found to require integration of simple concepts of electrodynamics, aeronomy, and hydrodynamics to solve decade long challenges. We follow some highlights of what we have learned, and what we hope to, with new polar research facilities, networks of which span transpolar distances. The challenges engage ground based and space borne research internationally, the national CEDAR program, and ground-breaking work within UCLA.

March 13, 2015
3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Geology 6707

Presented By:

• Anna Tenerani - UCLA

Seminar Description coming soon.