Issue 1, 2014
Issue 3, 2008
Professor Axel Brandenburg's Astrophysical Dynamos (AstroDyn) project has been awarded a five year grant, for a total of ? 2 220 000, from the European Research Council. The ERC Advanced Investigator Grant funding scheme targets exceptional research leaders across all fields of science and enables them to pursue frontier research of their own choice.
Summary of the AstroDyn project
In the last 10 years the dynamo group at Nordita, led by Professor Brandenburg, has been involved in major advances in dynamo theory, i.e. the theory that explains the conversion of kinetic into magnetic energy. In the Sun, for example, an oscillatory magnetic field is generated, but new research now shows that at large magnetic Reynolds numbers this can only happen if the Sun sheds small-scale magnetic twist through the surface while regenerating an interlinked assembly of large-scale poloidal and toroidal magnetic fields. The Sun is believed to accomplish this through coronal mass ejections, which are known shed approximately the required amount of magnetic twist or helicity.
The work at Nordita involves large-scale three-dimensional computer simulations that are suited for making contact with turbulence theory and for improving our physical understanding. The ultimate goal of this research is to understand the solar cycle based on well founded turbulence processes rather than ad hoc assumptions that are untenable. Most of the simulations done within this project make use of the Pencil Code, which is a public domain code that is constantly being improved by around 20 scientists world wide and is being mainained under a central versioning system at Nordita.
The inclusion of the effects of coronal mass ejections into the model is believed to be one of the key factors of future solar dynamo models. Other factors include the recently discovered near-surface shear layer of the Sun, where the shear has the opposite radial gradient than in the bulk of the convection zone, and can lead to equatorward migration of sunspot activity, which was another major problem in understanding the solar dynamo. Finally, the discovery that convection pumps magnetic fields downward and thus opposes magnetic buoyancy losses is another factor that makes the so-called distributed dynamo model viable. Here, the magnetic field resides in the entire convection zone, and is thus not confined to the thin layer just beneath the convection zone, as is still assumed in many models.
Nordita welcomes Professor John S. Wettlaufer, who is spending his sabbatical at Nordita. He is Bateman Professor of Geophysics & Physics at Yale University. His main interests can best be described as a hybrid between condensed matter theory and experiment, materials physics, and applied mathematics with applications focusing on environmental, geophysical and technological problems. The scales range from atomic to meters, with implications on much larger scales. Of particular interest is the growth of ice from vapor, pure and binary melts, phase-antiphase boundary migration, and the role of surface melting in the migration of negative crystals, grain boundaries, and as an underlying cause of frost heave.
His stay at Nordita is supported jointly by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Stockholm Astrobiology Graduate School, and Nordita. He recently gave an AlbaNova and Nordita Colloquium on The Quantum Electrodynamics of Snowflakes, Ice skating, Exobiology and other such matters. All our colloquia, including this one, are recorded and available as streaming video or to download.
Nordita welcomes a new assistant professor:
Dr. Ralf Eichhorn, Germany, comes to Nordita from the University of Bielefeld. His research includes the theory of transport processes in non-equilibrium systems, with applications to biophysical systems. He will join us in January 2009.
We also welcome six new Nordita Fellows:
along with two new Visiting Fellows, who will be coming from the University of Iceland in October:
An extended workshop on Turbulence and Oscillations in Accretion Discs will be held at Nordita during the first half of October, and is combined with a 2-day conference during 9-10 October. Scientists from Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Poland, Sweden, the UK and the US have signed up.
The workshop is organized by Marek Abramowicz (Gothenburg), Paola Rebusco (MIT), and Axel Brandenburg (Nordita).
A detailed program for the conference is now available on the workshop page. Please sign up and visit the page regularly for updates.
The program is organized by and Maxim Zabzine (Uppsala).
The scientific program Computational Engineering across Length and Time Scales has been moved from February 2009 to November 2009.
An extended workshop, or mini-program, on Ice & Water in the Universe was held at Nordita, September 15 - 26, in connection with the 7 months sabbatical stay of John S. Wettlaufer. This activity started with a 3 day conference with altogether 14 talks, followed by more relaxed gatherings on a daily basis with one or two talks, and attracted visitors from the US, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US.
Video recordings are available for most of the talks. Just click on the website of the workshop.
This was a two month program, June 1 - July 31, where a total of 60 scientists from 16 nationalities participated. The peak participation was around the time of the associated Nordic Workshop on LHC and Beyond which offered on interaction channel between theorists and experimentalists. Please see the program webpage for more information.
The program was coordinated by Katri Huitu (Helsinki) and Per Osland (Bergen).
Nordita invites members of the scientific community in the Nordic countries and worldwide to propose Scientific Programs for the year 2010 and early 2011.
A Nordita Scientific Program is an extended workshop where a limited number of scientists work together on specific topics for a period 1-2 months. Up to 25 resident participants can be accommodated at any given time. This includes a core of 8-12 internationally recognized leaders in the subject area of the program, 5-8 invited Nordic scientists, and a limited number of other applicants, including accompanying postdoctoral fellows and PhD students. Two or three principal investigators are responsible for coordinating a Program.
The deadline for submitting proposals is December 1, 2008. More information.
Tenured Professor in theoretical physics
Assistant Professor in theoretical high-energy physics
Nordita Fellowships
The European Research Council has decided to fund a concentrated 5-year effort at Nordita in Stockholm to improve our understanding of astrophysical dynamos. For details, see the project page on Astrophysical Dynamos, http://www.nordita.org/~brandenb/AstroDyn/. In connection with this 5-year project several positions will become available.
Four PhD positions (4 years)
Four post-doc positions (2 years, 2 to be filled in 2009)
One Assistant Professor (4 years, with the possibility of a 5th year)
Several visiting professorships
On July 1st Professor Anders Flodström, University Chancellor for the Swedish universities, replaced Professor Cecilia Jarlskog of Lund University as the national representative from Sweden on the Nordita Board. At the same time as we extend a warm welcome to Prof. Flodström we thank Prof. Jarlskog for her long-standing service and commitment to Nordita.
A meeting of Nordita's Scientific Advisory Committee was called on August 21 - 22. During the two day meeting committee members met with members of the Nordita Board, representatives of the local universities and Nordita's administration and staff.
The next meeting of the Nordita Board will be in Copenhagen on October 10 - 11, 2008.
→ Link to electronic preprints: www.nordita.org/preprints
If you have information about meetings or other items that would be useful to include in Nordita News, please send it to Anne Jifält, Nordita, email: anne@kth.se.