[We have episodes in German and English] How do scientists uncover phenomena and explain their connections? How do engineers design machines, methods and infrastructure? At omega tau, experts give detailed answers. Over the last ten years, we have produced 300 episodes in which we dug deeper, until we ran out of questions. Join us on our journey through the world of science and engineering: the closer you look and listen, the more interesting things get.
http://omegataupodcast.net
episode 249: Plasma Physics
Guests: Walter Gekelman, Troy Carter Host: Markus Voelter Shownoter: Andy Joiner
During my trip to the US I also visited the Basic Plasma Science Facility at the UCLA in Los Angeles. I talked with the two professors who run the facility, Walter Gekelman and Troy Carter. We discuss the basics of plasma, the research questions of plasma physics and some of the experimental challenges. I also get (and report on) a tour through the facility, which was very impressive, mainly because the whole system was built by the team around Walter and Troy!
Theory with Walter and Troy 00:01:48Walter Gekelman | UCLA | Plasma | Troy Carter | Fusion | Tokamak | D3D Tokamak | Astrophysical plasma | Space plasma | Ionization | "A soup of electrons, a soup of charged positive ions" | "There may or may not be neutral particles" | "The hotter the plasma is, the fewer neutral particles there will be" | Collective behaviors | Debye Shielding | Non-linear behavior compared with gas | Memory | Collective response | Waves communicate disturbance | Plasma in manufacturing | Plasma processing | Plasma etching | Plasma implantation | Wafer | Lasers can produce plasma when they hit a solid | Plasma can be as dense as water | Statistical physics | Maxwell–Boltzmann statistics | Numerical analysis | Particle-in-cell | Non-neutral plasmas | Pure ion/pure electron plasma | TFTR 510,000,000°C | Nonthermal plasma | Plasma oscillation | Plasma magnetization | Plasma potential | Coulomb barrier | Solar wind
More theory with Walter 00:38:01Lightning | Sprite | Magnetic ropes | Plasma is a better electrical conductor than copper | Resistance | Collisionless | Superconductor | Ionosphere | Heliosphere | Plasma cloud | Debye length | Artificial plasmas | Plasma display | Phosphor | Ground state | Ion laser | Sterilization | Plasma scalpel | Plasma cutter
Tour of the Facility 00:57:55Large Plasma Device (LaPD) | CNC machine | Turbomolecular pump | Airlock | Scripted | Cathode | Busbar | Substation | Heat exchanger | Supercapacitor | Quasi-separatrix layers | Ohm's law | LAPTAG | Residual gas analyzer | Waveguide | Faraday cage | ITER | Electron beam | Ion beam | Alfvén wave
Troy’s Research 01:45:58MHD turbulence | Accretion disk | Orbital decay | Kelvin–Helmholtz instability | Keplerian rotation | Eddie | Viscosity | Omega tau SOFIA tour | Energy cascade | Reproducibility | Drift waves | Rayleigh–Taylor instability | H-mode | H-mode profile | Stellarator | Edge-localized mode | NIF