Research Projects

Research projects

Phone: +47 7764 5133

Fax: +47 7764 5580

Email: ashild.fredriksen+uit.no

Last updated: March 08

Ion cyclotron heating in laboratory and space plasmas with flows

Funded by Norwegian Research Council 2007-2010

PI Åshild Fredriksen Co-I prof. Ruth Esser
Postdocs Jens Kleimann and Leka Nath Mishra
Ph.D. Scholarship (UiT): Hanne Sigrun Byhring

External collaborators:
Prof. Earl Scime, West Virginia University (VWU),Morgantown, USA;
Prof. Rod Boswell and Dr. Christine Charles, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra;
Dr. Steven Cranmer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center forAstrophysics (CfA), Cambridge MA, USA,
Prof. Øystein Lie-Svendsen, Norwegian Defense Establishment (NDE), Kjeller, Norway
Prof. Claudia Riccardi, University of Milan-Bicocca
Dr. Ane Aanesland and Dr. Albert Meige, École Polytechnique,

Project Page

The design and construction of Njord—an inductively coupled plasma device for space related plasma experiments

Funded by the University of Tromsø 2005 ( 1.4 MNOK)

(the main device for future experiments and research at Aurolab, replacing the former Blaamann device, now in West Virginia University )

Technical staff who helped the idea come through:
Chief engineer Inge Strømmesen (control and monitoring systems and acquisition software, electronic installations and a lot of other details)

Principal engineer Kjell-Arne Willumstad (mechanical work and installations)

Principal engineer Torfinn Roaldsen (RF expert, helping with RF system and power supplies and lending a helping hand when needed)
External collaborator:
Dr. Christopher Watts, University of New Mexico (UNM), Albuquerque, USA (Gave us a 5 kW Henry RF amplifier, helped installing it and test the first plasmas.)

Pictures from the construction process can be seen here.
A description of the Njord device is found in this link.

Matched filtering of plasma turbulence
Collaborators:
Prof Hans Pécseli, Dep. Physics, and Prof. Jan Trulsen, Dep. of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo

A new matched filter technique has unraveled a global crash and recovery structures in the potential of the magnetized Blaamann plasma which is separate from the turbulent structures commonly seen with a standard conditional sampling technique. These structures also exist on a longer time scale than the turbulent coherent structures observed by the latter technique. This work is being published in New Journal of Physics and can be viewed here.

Turbulence and instabilities in the magnetized plasma of Blaamann

Collaborators:
Prof. Claudia Riccardi, Dr. Eduardo Roman, and Dr. Ruggero Barni, Plasmaprometeo, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy;

Turbulence and coherent waves in the electron cyclotron plasma of Menja

Collaborator:
Dr. Sudeep Bhattacharjee, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur , India

Electron Energy Distributions (EEDFs) in molecular plasmas observed in an ECR plasma source

Collaborator:
Prof. Emil Toader, University of Bucuresti, Romania.