Wednesday Nite at the Lab
press release: For the fall semester, WN@TL goes hybrid both with Zoom and with in-person presentations. The zoom registration link is still go.wisc.edu/240r59. You can also watch a live web stream at biotech.wisc.edu/webcams
On March 2 Cary Forest of the Department of Physics will warm up the room with his talk on "Fusion Energy, Solar Flares and Black Holes in the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Lab."
Description: Plasma Physics is the overarching discipline describing plasma, the hot and energetic state of matter that makes up 99% of the visible universe. In my talk I will introduce you the exciting world of experimental plasma physics in which we build devices, here on Earth that replicate and mimic what we see in the Universe: from fusion energy powered stars; planetary and stellar magnetic fields spontaneously created by flows of plasma and liquid metals; spontaneous explosive bursts of plasma in solar flares that hammer our planet, satellites, and astronauts; and accretion of plasma onto supermassive black holes that gives rise to the galaxy sized radio jets that accelerate cosmic rays in the Universe. Each of these systems is built up from plasmas and have processes that can be studied terrestrially, which is what we do in the Wisconsin Plasma Lab. Experiments consist of big rooms, heavy equipment like large vacuum chambers, intense amounts of electric energy in the form of magnetic fields, high voltage power, and microwave heating, and specialized diagnostics to measure properties of plasma at temperatures greater than 100000 degrees.
I will tell two stories in my talk. The first will describe a recent experiment we carried out to investigate how plasma might break away from the magnetosphere of our Sun and give rise to the Solar Wind that fills our solar system. This experiment complements a recently launched NASA mission called Parker Solar Probe that is a satellite that is now probing close to the sun.
The second will be about revisiting an old idea called the magnetic mirror with new technology for making fusion in a simpler and more useful way than currently envisioned in reactors along the path that Iter is going. We are now building a new experiment called the Wisconsin High-Temperature-
Bio: Prof. Cary B Forest received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1986 in the Applied Math, Engineering and Physics program and then attended graduate school at Princeton University where he received a Ph.D. in 1992 in Astrophysical Sciences. In the course of his thesis work he invented and demonstrated a novel method for “bootstrapping up” a tokamak (a donut shaped magnetic bottle used to confine hot fusion plasmas) and helped build the first “spherical tokamak” in the US.
After graduate school he spent 5 years working at a private company, General Atomics, as a Scientist where his work focused on advancing the tokamak towards a fusion reactor.
Forest's research program at the UW since 1997 is on the border between nuclear fusion research and laboratory plasma astrophysics. During his time at Wisconsin, Forest's group has brought into operation four (and soon five) new major experiments, including the Madison Dynamo Experiment (sodium), the Rotating Wall Machine, the Plasma Couette Experiment, and the Big Red Plasma Ball in the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory. Most recently, Forest has reinitiated magnetic mirror research in the United States and is constructing the Wisconsin High Temperature Superconductor Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM) device as a prototypical fusion reactor with both academic and industrial applications. Three of Forest’s students have received the Rosenbluth Thesis Award for best thesis in Plasma Physics from the APS.
At the UW, Forest has received the Romnes Fellowship, the Vilas Associate Award, the Kellett Mid Career Award and a WARF Named Professorship. Nationally, he is the recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation Fellowship, is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, received a Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He currently serves as Director of the Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Website https://wippl.wisc.edu
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