The National Science Foundation supports a wide range of research portfolios in the fields of plasma science and engineering.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) describes the field of plasma physics as the study of matter and physical systems whose essential properties are governed by the collective interaction of large ensembles of freely charged particles. Physics underlying collective action in plasmas include astrophysics and astrophysics, materials science, applied mathematics, fusion science, accelerator science, and many engineering departments.
This discipline account has served as a definitive guide post for the plasma physics program within the NSF Physics division for the past decade. The broader field of Plasma Science Engineering (PSE) was recently reviewed in 2021 by the 10-year assessment of Plasma Science, ²’ Plasma Science: The Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) with the potential for technology, sustainability, security, and exploration. PSE includes many nominally clear fields where knowledge of plasma physics is important for understanding the universe as we know it, and for developing new technologies that rely on the unique properties of plasma. In the United States, many of these are supported by dedicated programs within the NSF and other federal scientific institutions.
Studying collective interactions in complex, many-body, non-equilibrium systems is not inherent to plasma. In fact, it can be argued that plasma, in which electromagnetic forces govern collective interactions, is one of the simplest examples of such systems. A recent NSF-funded workshop, “Working on the Scale of Complex Systems,” explored similarities between plasma physics and biological physics in the study of multi-scale non-equilibrium phenomena. Many social institutions, such as the condensed material physics and quantum information science research systems where quantum interactions determine statistical non-equilibrium properties, and democracy itself, are examples of complex non-equilibrium systems defined by human interactions.
Many of the plasma physics, as well as the broader PSE projects, and the authors featured in the innovation platform articles of the past year, are supported by NSF.
Edda Gschwendtner’s article, “Unlocking High Energy Electron Acceleration Proton Drive Plasma Technology,” describes the CERN-based, advanced proton-driven plasma wake field acceleration project and explains the Plasma wake field acceleration project. In this issue of article, Gschwendtner, Wendell Hill from the University of Maryland, also mentions powerful field quantum electrodynamics, a topic of “evoking quantum vacuum with extreme laser light.” From basics to basics, the basics of art. Bringing together the physics of electronic waves, special relativity and quantum mechanics, Hill describes upcoming virtual matter experiments aim towards creating electron-positron pair plasmas out of vacuum at some of the world’s highest power laser facilities, such as the newly constructed 3 petawatt (PW) NSF Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System facility at the University of Michigan.Hill is also engaged in a project aimed at building a next-generation multi-beam high-field laser facility with NSF opal, a 25 PW beamline.
Credit: University of Notre Dame
Cryoplasmic science
Dial back two articles by NSF-supported NSF-supported NSF-supported 10 digits from ~10 GEV to ~1 eV. “Cryo-temperature plasma science and engineering will enable a wide range of social transformations from Peter Brugemann at the University of Minnesota.” The impact of low temperature plasma science in life science, agriculture, sustainable chemistry, the environment, and next-generation manufacturing. The advances described in these articles have been made possible, in large part, by bringing knowledge of non-equilibrium plasma physics and chemistry to withstand many of the technological and social challenges of the modern world. To support such efforts, encouraged by the 2021 10-year assessment of NASEM Plasma Science, NSF has established an ecosystem for key innovations in its umbrella program, Plasma Science Engineering (Solar Eclipse), disrupted disciplinary action, and supported translation research and workforce development at the interface of basic plasma science and innovation.
Plasma Astrophysics
Laboratory plasma astrophysics has been a mainstay in the NSF plasma physics portfolio for decades. In this issue, “Welcome to the World of Laboratory Tostrophysics,” Thomas White and Reno of Thomas White at the University of Nevada, explains how Laboratory Tostrophysics uses advanced technology to simulate and study extreme cosmic conditions in a laboratory. White’s article focuses on the study of plasma in the high energy density regime of large laser facilities and the study of his research group’s specializations, which the NSF highlighted recently. However, the field of research is broader and includes many individual investor-scale research experiments, such as an NSF-funded work by the group Paul Veraran of California, simulating solar flares at scale sizes of bananas, and Caltech’s NSF funding study simulating the veracity distribution function of plasma particles during the vast reconnection of magnetic particles in the vast glory reconnection of Western Virginia experiments.
Support for NSF’s plasma science research is never limited to laboratory experiments. The world’s most powerful solar telescope, NSF Daniel K. Inoie, is managed by the National Solar Observatory, and is now able to measure the magnetic field in the solar atmospheric corona plasma. And the event horizon telescope measures the signature of a magnetic field embedded in a plasma swirling at the edge of the supermassive black hole M87⁷, allowing the exploration of what has come to be known as the “extreme” highly relevant plasma physics of these celestial environments.
Calculation modeling of plasma
An integral part of NSF’s plasma science portfolio is support for computational modeling of plasmas over the full energy range. From cryotechnical laboratory plasma to geospatial plasma, to extreme relativistic astrophysical plasma. Computational modeling has been recognized as an essential tool for elucidating the complex, multi-scale, nonlinear behavior of plasmas since the advent of high-performance computing (HPC). Highly designed systems such as the Plasma Wakefield Particle Accelerator.
One local area of plasma physics in which a computational approach is essential is the study of plasma turbulence. From work on the origins of space magnetic fields by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Group, led by Nuno Loureiro to studying the plasma dynamics of interstellar media using the NSF Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination ecosystem, Wisconsin – Madison Group Inelen Group inlen concons Group Inelen Group Led HPC resources HPC hardware and software have enabled dramatic advances in understanding the physics of plasma turbulence and its observable results.
Another area of focus that relies heavily on advances in computational plasma physics is space weather modeling. The joint NSF-NASA program on Space Weather with Quantified Uncertainties has enabled rapid progress in the development of state-of-the-art space weather software by bringing together teams with expertise across multiple scientific domains and research laboratories, while better understanding of the physics of space weather drivers is being pursued by NSF-funded researchers such as Luca Comisso and Lorenzo Sironi at Columbia University using computer models to explain the origins of high-energy solar particles.
The breadth and scope of plasma physics as discipline, as well as the width of the plasma science and engineering programs of NSF and partner institutions, is second to none. Since 2022, these different scientific communities have come together at biennial solar eclipse conferences where many of the aforementioned scientists had the opportunity to present their work and learn from each other. The next 2026 Solar Eclipse Conference will be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as hosted by the University of Michigan.
reference
See the program description for the NSF Plasma Physics Program.
https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/plasma-physics National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine. 2021. Plasma Science: Technology, sustainability, security, and exploration possibilities. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
https://doi.org/10.17226/25802 See NSF Workshop Award: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showaward?
https://www.nature.com/collections/beeegjcabc k wifesner, et al. 2019. Democracy stability: A complex system perspective. European Journal of Physics 40, 014002.
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6404/aaeb4d. Those interested in participating in the Friends of NSF Opal Community can visit https://nsf-opal.rochester.edu/contact/events at Horizon Telescope Collaboration et al. 2021. The results of the first M87 event Horizon telescope. viii. Magnetic field structure near event horizon. Astrophysical Journal Letters 910, L13.
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/abe4deEventHorizon Telescope Collaboration et al 2024. viii. Physical interpretation of polarizing rings. Astrophysical Journal Letters 964, L26.
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ad2df1 JM Dawson, 1995. Computer modeling of plasma: past, present and future. Plasma Physics 2, 2189.
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.871304
This article will also be featured in the 22nd edition of Quarterly Publication.
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