Hannes Alfvén Prize Laureates at the 48th EPS Conference on Plasma Physics

© Maastricht Marketing, Hugo Thomassen

The 48th European Physical Society (EPS) Conference on Plasma Physics will be held in the online format from June 27 to July 1, 2022. This annual conference covers the wide field of plasma physics including magnetic confinement fusion, beam plasma and inertial fusion, low temperature plasmas, and basic, space and astrophysical plasmas. The program can be found on the conference website and the registrations are now open here. Among others, the conference will be a great opportunity to listen to the lectures given by the Hannes Alfvén prize recipients as well as by the Innovation prize awardees.

The EPS Hannes Alfvén Prize for outstanding contributions to plasma physics was established by the EPS Plasma Physics Division in 2000. It is awarded for research achievements which have either already shaped the field of plasma physics or have demonstrated the potential to do so in future. To recognize collaborative research, a group of up to three individual scientists may be nominated. The prize is awarded each year at the EPS Conference on Plasma Physics and is managed by EPS Plasma Physics Division Board, where our group leader Prof. Mervi Mantsinen is a member since 2021.

The 2020 EPS Hannes Alfvén Prize is awarded to Dr. Annick Pouquet (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado and National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, USA) for fundamental contributions to quantifying energy transfer in magneto-fluid turbulence. Annick Pouquet’s contributions, together with her colleagues, include predicting the inverse cascade of magnetic helicity, extending the accessible frontier of nonlinear numerical computations, and key steps forward in the analytical theory of turbulence. Her work has facilitated remarkable advances in the understanding of turbulence in astrophysical and space plasmas.

The 2021 EPS Hannes Alfvén Prize is awarded to Prof. Sergei Igorevich Krasheninnikov (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego, USA) for seminal contributions to the plasma physics of the scrape-off layer and divertor in magnetically confined fusion (MCF) experiments, including the physics of “blobs”, divertor plasma detachment, and dust, together with atomic physics effects.

The 2022 EPS Hannes Alfvén Prize is awarded to Prof. Xavier Garbet (CEA/IRFM, Cadarache, France) for important contributions to the theory of the mesoscopic dynamics of magnetically confined fusion (MCF) plasmas: specifically, to understanding turbulence spreading, flux-driven gyrokinetic simulations, transport barriers, up-gradient transport and edge instabilities.

The information about all the previous prize winners can be found here.

Our warmest congratulations to all the winners!

Leave a Comment