Space Plasma Physics Research Group

UV image of the aurora obtained at the same time that the Polar satellite measured intense Alfven wave associated energy flux at higher altitude. The aurora was most intense near the foot of the Polar magnetic field line above north-central Canada.

The Alfven waves are capable of carrying enough energy to power all known candidate acceleration mechanisms in the auroral region and can also carry a significant portion of the energy released during substorms. -- Wygant et al., JGR, 2000.

Breaking News -- NASA announces the selection of the Electric Field Instrument (EFI) from the University of Minnesota proposed EFASC instrument suite for the RBSP mission

Space Plasma Physics research covers an extremely broad range, from the upper reaches of the earth's atmosphere to the region of space dominated by earth's magnetic field, the magnetosphere, to the regions of space dominated by the magnetic fields of other planets, to the space between the planets, the sun and the solar wind, to the outer reaches of sun's particle influence, the heliopause, and possibly beyond. Faculty members active in space physics also maintain strong ties to work done in astrophysics and plasma physics.

The major focus of the research of the group is the study of the physics of space plasmas. More than 99.9% of the visible matter in the universe is in a plasma state. The earth-sun system provides a unique opportunity to study the processes, such as particle acceleration and energy conversion that occur in plasmas.

Most experimental research in space plasma physics utilizes instrumentation on rockets and satellites. The University of Minnesota space physics group has been responsible for developing and building instrumentation and data analysis software for many NASA and ESA spacecraft, including Ulysses, Wind and STEREO, and for numerous rockets including Lightning Bolt. The group is also known for its electric field and plasma wave instrumentation. The group is currently analyzing data from the NASA Polar, FAST, and Wind missions, the ESA/NASA Cluster mission and the ISAS(Japan) Geotail mission.

The experimental space plasma group includes Professors Cynthia Cattell and John Wygant, Emeritus Professor Paul Kellogg, and Associate Program Director Keith Goetz. Professor Wygant's group focuses on processes responsible for particle transport and energization. Recent work has focused on particle acceleration due to electric fields in the Van Allen radiation belts, the dynamics of strong magnetic storms, the discovery that Alfven waves carry the energy to power the aurora, and the shock like structure of electric fields near reconnection regions. Professor Cattell's group studies nonlinear plasma waves, wave-particle interactions and the physics of auroral particle acceleration. The group has found that electron holes (a nonlinear wave similar to a soliton) may provide dissipation needed in collisionless plasmas for processes such as reconnection. Professor Kellogg studies plasma waves in the solar wind and planetary magnetospheres, including Jupiter.

The theoretical space plasma group includes Professor Robert Lysak and Senior Research Associate Yan Song. This group does theory and numerical modeling of auroral processes, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves, and magnetic reconnection. The space physics theory group has investigated the processes by which mass, momentum and energy are transferred from the solar wind to the magnetosphere and ionosphere by the propagation of MHD waves throughout the system. These models have helped to explain the observations of Professor Wygant's group which show that Alfven waves, a type of MHD wave that is similar to a wave propagating on a string, can carry sufficient energy to power the aurora.