Mertonian wins European Physical Society award for Plasma Physics thesis

Former Merton DPhil student Dr Archie Bott (2015) has been awarded the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Division PhD Research Award 2020. Archie, currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University, USA, receives the award for his thesis, ‘Magnetic-field amplification in turbulent laser-plasmas’.

Archie says:

“I am delighted to be one of the winners of the EPS Plasma Physics Division PhD award. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work on such a fascinating series of experiments during my DPhil, and humbled that the award’s selection committee have decided to recognise my research in this way.”

During his DPhil, Dr Bott has worked with Professors Alex Schekochihin and Gianluca Gregori (as part of a larger international collaboration), exploring the phenomenon of magnetic-field amplification in turbulent plasmas via a series of laboratory experiments carried out at the one of the highest-energy lasers currently in existence: the OMEGA laser facility at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (US).

The primary goal of these experiments was to test theoretical frameworks claiming that the presence of strong magnetic fields observed in our universe can be explained by this ‘turbulent dynamo’ amplification. In spite of first being formulated over 60 years ago, these frameworks had never been validated in the laboratory due to the difficulty of achieving the necessary conditions for the turbulent dynamo to operate on Earth.

In order to carry out this validation with the OMEGA experiments, accurate measurements of highly structured magnetic fields arising in turbulent laser-plasmas were required; Dr Bott has developed a new technique meeting this exact requirement. These magnetic-field measurements in turn provided plausible evidence for the first ever turbulent dynamo to be made in the laboratory.

Archie, who was a Prize Scholar in 2017/18, is one of four winners of 2020 PHD Research Awards; he is the second Mertonian to receive the award, after Edmund Highcock (2009) was selected in 2014.