The Nonlinear Plasma Dynamics Group

The Loureiro group carries out research in a wide variety of problems in nonlinear plasma dynamics, with a strong focus on turbulence and magnetic reconnection (and, sometimes, the connection between the two). Our work is often at the interface of analytical theory and state-of-the-art numerical simulations on super-computers. You'll find more information in the publications that are linked in this site, and by looking at the description of the team members.

The Loureiro Group is one of the groups of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) at MIT. We combine theory and massive parallel simulations to investigate various properties of plasmas. Plasma is an ionized gas of electrons and ions and for this reason, electromagnetic fields heavily influence the behavior of these systems. Our group focuses on many aspects of plasma dynamics, particularly turbulance and magnetic reconnection. Turbulence, as a fluid counterpart, is a chaotic motion of the particles that allow the transport of energy between different scales of the system. The goal is to understand how turbulance works in different plasma regimes.

In the presence of strong magnetic fields, the motion of the plasma is correlated with the magnetic lines, and the mutual interation between the two avoids these quantities to evolve separately -- known as the frozen flux condition. A phenomenon that allows for this property to be broken is magnetic reconnection, where the magnetic framework of the system is locally rearranged, for example, by a strong current. By modifying the local magnetic field, reconnection can change the large scale dynamic of the system, for example, by converting magnetic energy into thermal and kinetic energy. Understanding how magnetic reconnection occurs in different systems is an extremely stimulating field of research nowadays.

As a group we focus studies on the implications of these phenomena, turbulance and magnetic reconnection, in advanced technologies, such as magnetic confinement fusion, and a better understanding of astrophysical and cosmological scenarios.

(*) ASTROPHYSICS -- Magneto-genesis investigates the evolution and amplification of magnetic fields in the universe, thus understanding the mechanisms that amplify the magnetic fields up to the observable values. The most valuable mechanism for the application of the magnetic field is the turbulent dynamo effect, which converts the kinetic energy of the system into magnetic energy. One of the astrophysical structures where it is possible to observe the turbulent dynamo effect is the accretion disk, where the plasma rotates around a central object, such as a black hole. Understanding the behavior of the turbulence in these structures is one of the most challenging questions in modern astrophysics. We focus our research in comprehending the turbulent mechanism both on a large scale (comparable with an accretion disk) and a small scale (where the local dynamic of each particle is important), trying to connect the different regimes interested in the turbulence.

(*) MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT FUSION -- Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) attempts to reach the necessary temperatures and densities for fusion within a plasma. To do this, MCF uses strong magnetic fields to confine the plasma in specific devices called tokamaks. A challenge that arises in these devices is turbulence, which makes it difficult to obtain the conditions necessary for fusion. We investigate the different aspects of turbulence using complexity theory and propose alternative mechanisms to reduce turbulence in a tokamak, such as temperature gradients between electrons and ions.​