Physics of Strongly Coupled Plasmas -
Interests & Focus
Our primary goal is to understand the behaviour of plasmas at very high
densities, in which the Coulomb energy of interaction between the ions
exceeds their thermal kinetic energy and the electrons are either
partially or totally degenerate. These plasmas are called strongly
coupled plasmas which can be found in stars or in compressed fuel
capsules for intertail confinement fusion. They present a great
challenge to theorists as well as experimentalists because they cannot be
treated simply as a solid with a lattice structure, or an ideal and
classical system of charges governed by Debye-Huckel screening. Due to
their enormous presure, they can only exist in the laboratory as
extremely transient states. These difficulties have also kept strongly
coupled plasma as a largely uncharted frontier in plasma science.
Based on our earlier work on laser-driven ablation of solids, we launched
a new program in 1983 directed towards the study of strongly coupled
plasmas produced in condensed matter using laser-generated shock waves.
This has paved an exciting new path for us to explore both basic
properties of strongly coupled plasmas as well as nonequilibrium
phenomena in shock physics. Since 1992, we have also expanded our
research into the field of strongly coupled plasmas produced by intense
femtosecond lasers. Some of the questions we ask are: how do increasing
densities affect the interaction between charged particles, how does the
plasma environment modify the atomic structure of ions, how does shocked
matter reach its new equilibrium state, how does phase transition occur
in a shock wave, etc? Our activities
include both experimental and computational studies.
Forward to Current Projects
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UBC Physics Department
Comments and suggestions may be sent to
nga@physics.ubc.ca
Last modified January 1997.