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GPAP 2019 Newsletter

The APS Topical Group on Plasma Astrophysics (GPAP) was formed in 1999 to provide an intellectual home for plasma physicists who have an interest in astrophysical phenomena. At present, GPAP has approximately 400 members from broad backgrounds and includes scientists at both universities and national laboratories. The Topical Group serves as a bridge between the APS Division of Astrophysics (DAP) and the Division of Plasma Physics (DPP), which organizes the annual meeting for GPAP. GPAP aims to promote plasma astrophysics within the APS-DPP by coordinating with scientists in other fields.

Officers

With the election of Matt Kunz (Princeton), the leadership chain of GPAP is Toshi Tajima (UCI) past-chair, Mike Brown (Swarthmore) chair, Nuno Loureiro (MIT) chair-elect, and Matt Kunz (Princeton) vice-chair. These terms are for one year, and all the o_cers move up one link on the leadership chain in October 2020. Ivo Furno (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), whose term has also been confirmed at the last elections, serves as Secretary/Treasurer until October 2021. GPAP executive committee members at large include: departing members Paul Cassak (11/16-10/19) West Virginia University, Christopher Chen (11/16-10/19) Queen Mary, University of London, and Jason TenBarge (11/16-10/19) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; and continuing members Fatima Ebrahimi (11/17-10/20) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Jonathan Squire (11/17-10/20) Caltech (now New Zealand), Kristopher Klein (11/18-10/21), University of Arizona, Damiano Caprioli (11/19-10/22), University of Chicago, Li-Jen Chen (11/19-10/22), NASA, Yi-Hsin Liu (11/19-10/22), Dartmouth.

GPAP leadership strongly encourages members to run for GPAP office and executive committee

GPAP Student Travel Grants

Mike Brown initiated this program in 2018 to encourage the student participation in APS. At the 2018 meeting, we approved GPAP student travel grants for APS-DPP meetings. Each grant will be for $500 to defray travel and accommodation costs. Preference will be given to astrophysics graduate students who would normally not attend DPP. Students should send a one-page letter to Mike Brown describing their work, and why they would like to present their research at the APS-DPP meeting. Information is in the GPAP newsletter on the GPAP website.

GPAP Summer School

We held a successful GPAP/NSF-sponsored plasma astrophysics summer school at Swarthmore College the week of June 17, 2019. Instructors included Prof. Matt Kunz (Princeton), Dr. Jason TenBarge (Princeton University), Prof. Kris Klein (Arizona), Prof. Carolyn Kuranz (Michigan), and Prof. Mike Brown (Swarthmore). There were 30 applications from all over the country including Yale, Santa Barbara, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Harvard. The school was advertised at over 40 astronomy programs. 19 students attended the summer school; including 8 women, 7 undergraduates, and 10 first or second-year graduate students. Students stayed in Swarthmore College dorms and travel was subsidized. Students were required to become members of GPAP. The format included morning lectures, followed by small group work sessions in the afternoons.

Fellowship

Congratulations to our new GPAP sponsored APS Fellow for 2019: Greg Howes (University of Iowa). Citation: “For fundamental contributions to understanding of turbulence in weakly collisional, magnetized plasmas, especially the nature of energy dissipation mechanisms.”

Upcoming GPAP-relevant Meetings

GPAP aims to keep membership informed of upcoming meetings of interest to the plasma astrophysics community.

IPELS Meeting

The International Workshop on the Interrelationship between Plasma Experiments in the Laboratory and in Space (IPELS) held their 13th meeting in Tokyo in September 2019. IPELS has held meetings every other year since 1991 (in Albach, Austria). GPAP is a supporting partner of IPELS. The next IPELS meeting will be in Russia in coordination with the Russian Academy of Science (2021).

GPAP Meeting Minutes

The annual GPAP business meeting was held on October 22, 2019 at the APS-DPP meeting in Fort Lauderdale. New officers and GPAP fellows were announced. Several ideas for GPAP initiatives were discussed, including the GPAP summer school, and GPAP student travel grants.