Astrophysical Dynamo Project at Nordita

The European Research Council decided in 2008 to fund a concentrated 5-year effort at Nordita in Stockholm to improve our understanding of astrophysical dynamos. This work couples large-scale numerical simulations with numerically guided analytical approaches. An ultimate goal is to have a physically consistent model of the solar dynamo.

Simulations, on the one hand, still lack some potentially important properties (tachocline, near-surface shear layer, ability to shed small-scale magnetic helicity), while analytic approaches (including mean-field theory) are still being developed to explain and reproduce more successfully some of the systematic behaviors seen in simulations.

One of the default research tool is the Pencil Code, which is a public domain code initiated at Nordita and used for solving partial differential equations on massively parallel computers. Its maintenance through a remote versioning system (SVN) allows the users easy updates and the possibility of sharing new and/or experimental developments with other users.

News:

  • 30 Jan 2013: popast.nu about NEMPI
  • 19 Jan 2013: Final report about Winter School put online
  • 17 Dec 2012: Decision to host the Solar Physics Institute at Stockholm University
  • 7 Dec 2012: Simon Candelaresi defends his thesis
  • 30 Nov 2012: Nordita movie released
  • 14 Nov 2012: Fabio Del Sordo defends his thesis
  • 26 Oct 2012: Koen Kemel defends his thesis
  • 8 Oct 2012: Sabine Hossenfelder publishes blog entry about the Sun's butterfly diagram
  • 28 Jul 2012: equatorward migration in solar dynamo model just published
  • 1 Jul 2012: dynamos in SNR shocks; see our paper on the Bell instability
  • 21 May 2012: equatorward migration in spherical wedge convection
  • 26 Mar 2012: Jörn's home page released
  • 21 Mar 2012: Equinox BBQ
  • 12 Feb 2012: NEMPI page moved to here (with new convergence plot)
  • 26 Nov 2011: MHD course schedule annouced (starting 17 Jan 2012)
  • 18 Nov 2011: PhD studentship 2012 annouced (deadline 15 Jan 2012)
  • 8 Nov 2011: Tage Erlander Guest Professorship to John Wettlaufer
  • 3 Oct 2011: publication of Detection of NEMPI in DNS in ApJL 740, L50
  • 18 Sep 2011: Chi-kwan Chan has his sg2 code on GoogleCode
  • 16 Aug 2011: Koen Kemel defends his licentiate thesis
  • 6 May 2011: Jörn Warnecke defends his licentiate thesis
  • 11 Feb 2011: Simon Candelaresi defends his licentiate thesis
  • 9 Feb 2011: Fabio del Sordo defends his licentiate thesis

    Current project/group members:

  • Master students: Atefeh Barekat (2012-2013)
  • PhD students: Sarah Jabbari (2012-), Illa R. Losada (2013-), Jörn Warnecke (2009-2013)
  • Visiting fellows: Ahmet Devlen (2013), Ebru Devlen (2012-2013), Hans-Erik Sätherblom (2011-)
  • Nordita fellows: Oliver Gressel (2012-2013), Mikhail Modestov (2012-2014), C. Anthony van Eysden (2012-2014)
  • Assistant professors: Dhrubaditya Mitra (2010-)
  • Vising professors: Bengt Gustafsson (2010-), Michael Liberman (2013-), Matthias Rheinhardt (2013-2014)
  • PI: Axel Brandenburg, his research highlights and publications

    Former members:

  • PhD students: Koen Kemel (2009-2012) Simon Candelaresi (2009-2013), Fabio Del Sordo (2009-2013),
  • Post-docs: Piyali Chatterjee (2009-2011), Gustavo Guerrero (2009-2011), Alexander Hubbard (2008-2011),
  • Nordita fellows: Niccoló Bucciantini (2009-2011) Chi-kwan Chan (2010-2012)
  • Assistant professor: Petri Käpylä (2009-2011, but on leave)
  • Vising professors: Matthias Rheinhardt (2009-2011), Leonid Kitchatinov (2011), John Wettlaufer (2011-2012), Gunnlaugur Björnsson (2012)

    Frequent visitors:

    Nathan Kleeorin, Karl-Heinz Rädler, Igor Rogachevskii


    Nordita Astrophysics Group in April 2010. From the left: Dhrubaditya Mitra, Emeric Bron, Simon Candelaresi, Koen Kemel, Fabio Del Sordo, Jörn Warnecke, Niccoló Bucciantini, Piyali Chatterjee, Matthias Rheinhardt, Axel Brandenburg, Gustavo Guerrero, Alexander Hubbard.

    Events:

  • 8 Apr - 3 May 2013 Differential Rotation and Magnetism across the HR Diagram
  • 7 - 18 January 2013 Nordita Winter School 2013 in High-Energy Astrophysics
  • 6-10 August 2012 Astrophysics Code Comparison Workshop
  • 17-21 Oct 2011 The solar course, the chemic force, and the speeding change of water
  • 25 Jul - 19 Aug 2011 Dynamo, Dynamical Systems and Topology
  • 26 Apr - 27 May 2011 Predictability + School on Data Assimilation
  • 14 - 18 Feb 2011 RädlerFest: α effect and beyond
  • 11 - 22 Jan 2010 Winter School on Astrophysical Dynamos
  • 25 Sep - 25 Oct 2009 Solar and stellar dynamos and cycles
  • 6 - 10 Apr 2009 Astrophysical Magnetohydrodynamics
  • 17 Mar - 11 Apr 2008 Turbulence and Dynamos

    Links:

  • Project pages: daily routine and progress reports
  • Press release of 15 Sept 2008, ERC overall outcome
  • Interview with British Publishers, January 2010
  • Report after the first 18 months, September 2010
  • Report after the first 30 months, October 2011
  • Report after the first 36 months, March 2012
  • Nordita Astrophysics in 2010, December 2010
  • How to find Nordita on Google Earth

    Try to scan the box on the right with your Android barcode scanner! (Download barcode scanner from the Android Marketplace. For iPhone and Blackberry and others: Neo Reader)
    View Larger Map
    Figure at the top: courtesy of Dr Petri Käpylä
    Käpylä, P. J., Mantere, M. J., & Brandenburg, A.: 2012, ``Cyclic magnetic activity due to turbulent convection in spherical wedge geometry,'' Astrophys. J. Lett. 755, L22 (arXiv:1205.4719, ADS, DOI, PDF)
    $Date: 2013-03-16 09:43:43 $, $Author: brandenb $, $Revision: 1.90 $