Colby Haggerty
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Physics·Early-career
Plasmas are gases of charged particles. In many places in space they are so thin that particles rarely collide, and electric and magnetic fields control the particles instead.
- Fields
Physics
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Computer Science
- Topics
magnetic reconnection
collisionless plasma
plasma physics
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Determine how a velocity shear between neighboring plasma flows changes the rate, outflow speed and heating of collisionless magnetic reconnection, using kinetic modeling and theory.
- Test how hotter incoming ions and electrons, and energetic non-thermal electrons, alter magnetic reconnection with and without a guide field, combining simulations with spacecraft observations.
- Identify the current sheets and shear regions that accelerate particles in relativistic turbulent pair plasmas, using 3D particle-in-cell simulations and the unsupervised machine learning tool aweSOM.
- Separate each particle's energy gain into mechanisms such as electric-field acceleration, mirror reflection and curvature drift, and predict observable spectra and polarization with the 3DPol code.
More about the research
Under these conditions, magnetic energy can turn into very fast particles and bright radiation. This happens in solar flares, in the solar wind, and in jets from supermassive black holes. The work here uses computer simulations and theory to study how this energy transfer works. One project focuses on magnetic reconnection near the Sun and Earth. The other focuses on turbulence in the most extreme astrophysical sources.
Why it matters
Reconnection drives solar flares and controls how the solar wind interacts with Earth's magnetosphere, so understanding it better could support space weather research. Linking small-scale plasma physics to the light we observe from black-hole jets and gamma-ray bursts helps astronomers interpret observations. It could also guide the design of future space telescopes and detectors.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Paul Cassak
Clemson University, SC·Physics
Measure how energy conversion in non-equilibrium plasmas depends on ambient plasma conditions, using a series of two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations of magnetic reconnection and turbulence.
Kun Zhang
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach, FL·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure how the reflection rate, velocity, temperatures and velocity distribution types of freshly reflected ions at Earth's bow shock depend on solar wind speed, interplanetary magnetic field, Mach number, beta and shock angle, using satellite measurements.
Louise Willingale
University of Michigan, MI·Physics
Develop and characterize a charged-particle probe diagnostic at the NSF ZEUS laser facility that measures rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields inside laser-made plasmas.
The school
University of Hawaii at Manoa: 23 labs on PI Pages, $376M a year on research, 182 research doctorates a year.
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