Two IPP physicists distinguished

European-American Landau-Spitzer Prize for outstanding contributions to plasma physics

June 16, 2014

One of the prize-winning diagnostic methods: By means of light signals in a special scintillator measuring instrument (the FILD fast ion-loss detector) it is possible to detect energetic plasma particles, which in time with a magnetic field perturbation, viz. a toroidal Alfvén eigenmode, are transported out of the plasma and get lost.

Graphics: IPP

One of the prize-winning diagnostic methods: By means of light signals in a special scintillator measuring instrument (the FILD fast ion-loss detector) it is possible to detect energetic plasma particles, which in time with a magnetic field perturbation, viz. a toroidal Alfvén eigenmode, are transported out of the plasma and get lost.

Graphics: IPP

The Landau-Spitzer Prize for Plasma Physics 2014 was awarded to two scientists at IPP in Garching, Dr. Manuel Garcia-Munoz, at present delegated to the University of Seville, and Dr. Benedikt Geiger, together with American plasma physicists Dr. David Pace and Dr. Michael Van Zeeland.

The award was for their investigation on confinement of fast particles in tokamaks, a profound understanding of which they jointly achieved. Their collaboration on the two tokamak devices, ASDEX Upgrade at Garching and DIII-D at San Diego, led to the development of new methods of observing the motion of energetic plasma particles under various operating conditions.

The prize, endowed with 4,000 US dollars, is jointly awarded by the American and European Physical Societies. It is awarded every two years to up to four scientists who together have made outstanding theoretical, experimental or technological contributions to plasma physics and hence to European-American cooperation.