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Field Aligned Current
A Birkeland current (also known as field-aligned current, FAC) is a set of electrical currents that flow along geomagnetic field lines connecting the Earth's magnetosphere to the Earth's high latitude ionosphere. In the Earth's magnetosphere, the currents are driven by the solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) and by bulk motions of plasma through the magnetosphere (convection indirectly driven by the interplanetary environment). The strength of the Birkeland currents changes with activity in the magnetosphere (e.g. during substorms). Small scale variations in the upward current sheets (downward flowing electrons) accelerate magnetospheric electrons which, when they reach the upper atmosphere, create the Auroras Borealis and Australis. In the high latitude ionosphere (or auroral zones), the Birkeland currents close through the region of the auroral electrojet, which flows perpendicular to the local magnetic field in the ionosphere. The Birkeland currents occur in two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl-Gunne Fälthammar
Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (4 December 1931 – 22 September 2022) was a Swedish electrical engineer and physicist who was Professor Emeritus of electrical engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, specialising in space and plasma physics. He succeeded Hannes Alfvén as Professor of Plasma Physics in 1975. His research interests included plasma electrodynamics, with application to space and astrophysical plasmas, especially in the context of auroral and magnetospheric physics. He was also the Associate Editor of the journaAstrophysics and Space Science Early life and education Carl-Gunne Fälthammar was born in Markaryd, Sweden on 4 December 1931. In 1956 he earned the Swedish equivalent to a master's degree (civilingenjör), and in 1960 the equivalent of a Ph.D. (Tekn. lic.), and in 1966 the position of Docent (approximately assistant professor), all from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Career From July 1967 until June 1997, Fälthammar headed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ampère's Force Law
In magnetostatics, Ampère's force law describes the force of attraction or repulsion between two current-carrying wires. The physical origin of this force is that each wire generates a magnetic field, following the Biot–Savart law, and the other wire experiences a magnetic force as a consequence, following the Lorentz force law. Equation Special case: Two straight parallel wires The best-known and simplest example of Ampère's force law, which underlaid (before 20 May 2019) the definition of the ampere, the SI unit of electric current, states that the magnetic force per unit length between two straight parallel conductors is \frac = 2 k_ \frac , where k_ is the magnetic force constant from the Biot–Savart law, F_m / L is the total force on either wire per unit length of the shorter (the longer is approximated as infinitely long relative to the shorter), r is the distance between the two wires, and I_1, I_2 are the direct currents carried by the wires. This i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z-pinch
In fusion power research, the Z-pinch (zeta pinch) is a type of plasma confinement system that uses an electric current in the plasma to generate a magnetic field that compresses it (see pinch). These systems were originally referred to simply as pinch or Bennett pinch (after Willard Harrison Bennett), but the introduction of the θ-pinch (theta pinch) concept led to the need for clearer, more precise terminology. The name refers to the direction of the current in the devices, the Z-axis on a Cartesian three-dimensional graph. Any machine that causes a pinch effect due to current running in that direction is correctly referred to as a Z-pinch system, and this encompasses a wide variety of devices used for an equally wide variety of purposes. Early uses focused on fusion research in donut-shaped tubes with the Z-axis running down the inside of the tube, while modern devices are generally cylindrical and used to generate high-intensity x-ray sources for the study of nuclear w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvin–Helmholtz Instability
The Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (after Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz) is a fluid instability that occurs when there is shear velocity, velocity shear in a single continuum mechanics, continuous fluid or a velocity difference across the interface between two fluids. Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities are visible in the atmospheres of planets and moons, such as in List of cloud types, cloud formations on Earth or the Great Red Spot#Great Red Spot, Red Spot on Jupiter, and the Stellar atmosphere, atmospheres of the Sun and other stars. Theory overview and mathematical concepts Fluid dynamics predicts the onset of instability and transition to turbulent flow within fluids of different density, densities moving at different speeds. If surface tension is ignored, two fluids in parallel motion with different velocities and densities yield an interface that is unstable to short-wavelength perturbations for all speeds. However, surface tension is able to stabilize the short w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diocotron Instability
A diocotron instability is a plasma instability created by two sheets of charge slipping past each other. Energy is dissipated in the form of two surface waves which propagate in opposite directions, one flowing over the other. This instability is the plasma analog of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in fluid mechanics Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasma (physics), plasmas) and the forces on them. Originally applied to water (hydromechanics), it found applications in a wide range of discipl .... References * Plasma instabilities Articles containing video clips {{plasma-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vortices
In fluid dynamics, a vortex (: vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in the wake of a boat, and the winds surrounding a tropical cyclone, tornado or dust devil. Vortices are a major component of turbulent flow. The distribution of velocity, vorticity (the curl of the flow velocity), as well as the concept of circulation are used to characterise vortices. In most vortices, the fluid flow velocity is greatest next to its axis and decreases in inverse proportion to the distance from the axis. In the absence of external forces, viscous friction within the fluid tends to organise the flow into a collection of irrotational vortices, possibly superimposed to larger-scale flows, including larger-scale vortices. Once formed, vortices can move, stretch, twist, and interact in complex ways. A moving vortex carrie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulsed Power
Pulsed power is the science and technology of accumulating energy over a relatively long period of time and releasing it instantly, thus increasing the instantaneous power. They can be used in some applications such as food processing, water treatment, weapons, and medical applications. Overview Energy is typically stored as electric potential energy within capacitors, or in the case of explosive pulsed power, as chemical energy. The stored energy is released over a very short time scale resulting in a large amount of power being delivered to a external electric load, load which can be used to study high energy density physics phenomena such as inertial confinement fusion using a Z-pinch, and Plasma (physics), plasma physics or to create electromagnetic radiation. Some electrically driven pulsed power accelerators make use of Pulse-forming network, pulse-forming lines to compress the current pulse before reaching the load, as is often the case when Marx generators are used as the pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terawatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor of James Watt (1736–1819), an 18th-century Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved the Newcomen engine with his own steam engine in 1776, which became fundamental for the Industrial Revolution. Overview When an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against a constant opposing force of one newton, the rate at which work is done is one watt. \mathrm. In terms of electromagnetism, one watt is the rate at which electrical work is performed when a current of one ampere (A) flows across an electrical potential difference of one volt (V), meaning the watt is equivalent to the volt-ampere (the latter unit, however, is used for a different quantity from the real power of an electrical circuit). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joule Heating
Joule heating (also known as resistive heating, resistance heating, or Ohmic heating) is the process by which the passage of an electric current through a conductor (material), conductor produces heat. Joule's first law (also just Joule's law), also known in countries of the former Soviet Union, USSR as the Joule–Lenz law, Assuming the element behaves as a perfect resistor and that the power is completely converted into heat, the formula can be re-written by substituting Ohm's law, V = I R , into the generalized power equation: P = IV = I^2R = V^2/R where ''R'' is the electrical resistance and conductance, resistance. Voltage can be increased in DC circuits by connecting batteries or solar panels in series. Alternating current When current varies, as it does in AC circuits, P(t) = U(t) I(t) where ''t'' is time and ''P'' is the instantaneous active power being converted from electrical energy to heat. Far more often, the ''average'' power is of more interest than the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ampere
The ampere ( , ; symbol: A), often shortened to amp,SI supports only the use of symbols and deprecates the use of abbreviations for units. is the unit of electric current in the International System of Units (SI). One ampere is equal to 1 coulomb (C) moving past a point per second. It is named after French mathematician and physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836), considered the father of electromagnetism along with Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted. As of the 2019 revision of the SI, the ampere is defined by fixing the elementary charge to be exactly , which means an ampere is an electric current equivalent to elementary charges moving every seconds, or approximately elementary charges moving in a second. Prior to the redefinition, the ampere was defined as the current passing through two parallel wires 1 metre apart that produces a magnetic force of newtons per metre. The earlier CGS system has two units of current, one structured similarly to the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
