Plasma physics articles within Nature Physics

Featured

  • News & Views |

    The successful formation of self-generated magnetic fields in the lab using large-scale, high-power lasers opens the door to a better understanding of some of the most extreme astrophysical processes taking place in the Universe.

    • Francisco Suzuki-Vidal

  • News & Views |

    Long-pulse plasmas created in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) mark another advance in fusion. The Chinese tokamak now demonstrates a method for controlling the instabilities at the plasma edge that might otherwise limit the performance of prototypical fusion power plants such as ITER.

    • William Morris

  • Article |

    A high-confinement plasma that is potentially useful for controlled fusion has now been sustained for over 30 s. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in Hefei, China, achieved this record pulse length by first confining the plasma using lithium-treated vessel walls, and then maintaining it with a so-called lower hybrid current drive.

    • J. Li
    • , H. Y. Guo
    •  & X. L. Zou

  • News & Views |

    High-cadence images link the phenomena required for particle acceleration at the Sun. A plasmoid-driven shock wave accelerates electrons in intermittent bursts.

    • Edward W. Cliver

  • Article |

    A combination of measurements from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and radiospectroscopy data from the Nançay Radioheliograph now details the mechanism that connects coronal mass ejections from the sun and the acceleration of particles to relativistic speeds. A spatial and temporal correlation between a coronal ‘bright front’ and radio emissions associated with electron acceleration demonstrates the fundamental relationship between the two.

    • Eoin P. Carley
    • , David M. Long
    •  & Peter T. Gallagher

  • News & Views |

    Observations from NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory provide compelling evidence for the central role of magnetic reconnection in solar flares.

    • Terry G. Forbes

  • Letter |

    Extreme ultraviolet and X-ray imaging of a solar flare with unprecedented clarity now provide visual evidence that magnetic reconnection plays a fundamental role in generating solar flares. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory is able to observe a ’cold’ plasma moving into the reconnection point and the simultaneous acceleration of a hot-flare-heated plasma away from it.

    • Yang Su
    • , Astrid M. Veronig
    •  & Weiqun Gan

  • Letter |

    Magnetic reconnection in the Earth's magnetosphere accelerates electrons. And yet energetic electrons are not created during reconnection in the solar wind. Observations from the Cluster spacecraft now suggest that electron acceleration is caused by repeated bursts of plasma flow, which only occur in situations where the magnetic reconnection is unsteady.

    • H. S. Fu
    • , Yu. V. Khotyaintsev
    •  & M. André

  • News & Views |

    Observations made by the Cassini spacecraft at the bow shock of Saturn suggest that electrons are likely to be accelerated to near-relativistic energies by strong astrophysical shocks.

    • Ian G. Richardson

  • Letter |

    Data from the Cassini spacecraft identify strong electron acceleration as the solar wind approaches the magnetosphere of Saturn. This so-called bow shock unexpectedly occurs even when the magnetic field is roughly parallel to the shock-surface normal. Knowledge of the magnetic dependence of electron acceleration will aid understanding of supernova remnants.

    • A. Masters
    • , L. Stawarz
    •  & M. K. Dougherty

  • News & Views |

    The formation of a macroscopic self-organized electromagnetic-field structure during a collisionless interaction of supersonic plasma streams is challenging existing models of counter-streaming plasmas.

    • Sergey Lebedev

  • News & Views |

    A sophisticated model of the birth and early evolution of coronal mass ejections could lead to better forecast of the 'weather' in space.

    • Stefaan Poedts

  • Article |

    Sudden bursts of charged particles emitted from the surface of the Sun can disrupt the satellites orbiting Earth. However, the mechanisms that drive these so-called coronal mass ejections remain unclear. An advanced computer model now establishes a link between the onset of an ejection and the emergence of magnetic flux into the solar atmosphere.

    • Ilia I. Roussev
    • , Klaus Galsgaard
    •  & Jun Lin

  • Research Highlights |

    • Iulia Georgescu

  • Article |

    A demonstration of the ability to coherently control the collective attosecond dynamics of relativistic electrons driven through a plasma by an intense laser represents an important step in the development of techniques to manipulate and study extreme states of matter.

    • Antonin Borot
    • , Arnaud Malvache
    •  & Rodrigo Lopez-Martens

  • News & Views |

    Geomagnetic storms driven by the solar wind can cause the flux of high-energy electrons in the Earth's Van Allen belts to rapidly fall. Analysis of data obtained during one such event from multiple spacecraft located at different altitudes in the magnetosphere reveals just where these electrons go.

    • Mary K. Hudson

  • Letter |

    Magnetic reconnection is a process by which the field lines of a magnetized plasma undergo dramatic realignment, releasing large amounts of energy. Large-scale simulations of reconnection events in the Earth’s magnetosphere suggest that this process takes place over much greater distances than previously expected.

    • J. Egedal
    • , W. Daughton
    •  & A. Le

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