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Jack Hare
Jack Hare
Gale (1929) Career Development Professor, Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Nuclear Science and Engineering
jdhare@mit.edu
NW16-256
https://puffin.mit.edu/
Education

PhD, Plasma Physics, Imperial College London, UK (2017)
MA, Plasma Physics, Princeton University, USA (2013)
BA, MSci, Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK (2011)

Pulsed power for High Energy Density Laboratory Astrophysics

Pulsed-power technology allows us to concentrate mega Amperes of electrical current into small (cubic centimeter) volumes on short timescales (100 to 1000 ns). These currents heat initially solid materials to a high energy density (HED) plasma state, with temperatures of millions of degrees, magnetic fields of a few Tesla and up, and velocities of hundreds of kilometers per second. These plasmas dimensionlessly scale to astrophysical objects, allowing us to study the most extreme events in the Universe in our laboratory.

Magnetic Reconnection

This ubiquitous phenomenon is responsible for some of the most dynamic and spectacular events in the universe, such as solar flares erupting from the surface of our Sun. Reconnection occurs whenever non-aligned magnetic fields meet within a plasma. Reconnection causes an explosive change in field topology, along with a rapid conversion of magnetic energy into thermal and kinetic energy. I am interested in laboratory experiments which study instabilities within the reconnection layer, pathways to fully turbulent reconnection, the effects of strong radiative cooling, and kinetic physics.

 

Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

Hydrodynamic turbulence is one of the outstanding challenges of modern physics, and MHD turbulence adds in electromagnetic fields and charged particles to increase the complexity even further. Most of the universe is plasma, and most of that plasma is turbulent: hence MHD turbulence underpins the bewildering diversity of behaviors that we observe in astrophysical plasmas. We create and study these plasmas in the laboratory, producing high quality data which enables us to test and assess numerical simulations and theoretical models

  1. L G Suttle, G C Burdiak, C L Cheung, T Clayson, J W D Halliday, J D Hare, S Rusli, et al. “Interactions of Magnetized Plasma Flows in Pulsed-Power Driven Experiments.” Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 62, no. 1 (2020): 014020. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab5296.
  2. J D Hare, J MacDonald, S N Bland, J Dranczewski, J W D Halliday, S V Lebedev, L G Suttle, E R Tubman, and W Rozmus. “Two-Colour Interferometry and Thomson Scattering Measurements of a Plasma Gun.” Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 61, no. 8 (2019): 085012. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab2571.
  3. L G Suttle, J D Hare, S. V. Lebedev, A. Ciardi, N. F. Loureiro, G. C. Burdiak, J. P. Chittenden, et al. “Ion Heating and Magnetic Flux Pile-up in a Magnetic Reconnection Experiment with Super-Alfvénic Plasma Inflows.” Physics of Plasmas 25 (2018): 042108. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5023664.
  4. J D Hare, L. G. Suttle, S. V. Lebedev, N. F. Loureiro, A. Ciardi, J.P. Chittenden, T. Clayson, et al. “An Experimental Platform for Pulsed-Power Driven Magnetic Reconnection.” Physics of Plasmas 25 (2018): 055703. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5016280.
  5. J D Hare, S V Lebedev, L G Suttle, N F Loureiro, A Ciardi, G C Burdiak, J P Chittenden, et al. “Formation and Structure of a Current Sheet in Pulsed-Power Driven Magnetic Reconnection Experiments.” Physics of Plasmas 24 (2017): 102703. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4986012.
  6. J D Hare, L Suttle, S V Lebedev, N F Loureiro, A Ciardi, G C Burdiak, J P Chittenden, et al. “Anomalous Heating and Plasmoid Formation in a Driven Magnetic Reconnection Experiment.” Physical Review Letters 118 (2017): 085001. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.085001.
  7. G C Burdiak, S V Lebedev, S N Bland, T Clayson, J D Hare, L Suttle, D C Garcia, J P Chittenden, A Frank, and T S Lane. “The Structure of Bow Shocks Formed by the Interaction of Pulsed-Power Driven Magnetised Plasma Flows with Conducting Obstacles.” Physics of Plasmas 24 (2017): 072713. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4993187.
  8. G F Swadling, S V Lebedev, G. N. Hall, F Suzuki-Vidal, G C Burdiak, L Pickworth, P De Grouchy, et al. “Experimental Investigations of Ablation Stream Interaction Dynamics in Tungsten Wire Arrays: Interpenetration, Magnetic Field Advection, and Ion Deflection.” Physics of Plasmas 23 (2016): 056309. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4948279.
  9. L G Suttle, J D Hare, S  V Lebedev, G  F Swadling, G  C Burdiak, A Ciardi, J  P Chittenden, et al. “Structure of a Magnetic Flux Annihilation Layer Formed by the Collision of Supersonic, Magnetized Plasma Flows.” Physical Review Letters 116, no. 22 (May 31, 2016): 225001. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.225001.