his project is one of 5 that are being advertised for 1 studentship position. The studentship will be awarded to the best candidate.
Project Description
The Centre for Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics at Exeter is one of the leading research groups of its kind in the UK. Our research encompasses Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics, the Fluid Dynamics of Weather and Climate, Planetary and Exoplanetary Fluid Dynamics, Solar-Terrestrial Plasmas and Space Weather, Theoretical Fluid Dynamics, and Numerical Analysis and Modelling. We invite applications to study for a PhD starting in September 2021 in the following area.
Throughout the universe electrically conducting flows interact with magnetic fields. The resulting state, known as magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, is responsible for a vast range of astrophysical behaviour. Solar wind turbulence is of particular current interest, with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and ESA’s Solar Orbiter providing a wealth of data in regimes and with accuracies far exceeding those available previously.
While considerable progress has been made over recent years with understanding the basic properties of electrically conducting turbulence, many questions remain. For example, high-resolution direct numerical simulations of forced, incompressible, field-guided turbulence have shown that the small-scale velocity and magnetic field fluctuations are scale-dependently aligned. While perfectly aligned fluctuations are one of the states predicted by relaxation dynamics, how and why the scale-dependence arises in the forced, dissipative case is unknown, as is whether similar dynamics is found in related systems.
Working within the Centre for Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics at Exeter, the student will study the interaction between turbulent electrically conducting fluid flows and magnetic fields by investigating simplified theoretical models and conducting and analysing numerical simulations.
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