Name: Christopher Brady

Position: Research Fellow

Funding: STFC Consolidated grant

Research Interests: My main research is using the LARE2D and 3D MHD codes to simulate heating processes in the solar corona. I do this by simulating the passage of Alfven waves into the solar corona, and analysing how and where they are dissipated both by ion-neutral resistivity and MHD shock heating using large scale, massively parallel simulations and simplified analytial models. I also work on the behaviour of the MHD kink instability in non ideal and highly structured plasmas.

I also work on development and implementation of software and algorithms for solar physics, such as implementing high efficiency Braginskii parallel thermal conduction using the superstepping method.

Other/Previous Research Interests: Numerical simulations of laser plasma interactions with relevance to ion acceleration and inertial confinement fusion. More recently, I have been working on simulating the new physics of laser solid interactions at ultra high-intensities (>10²² W/cm²) when synchrotron radiation and pair production are included using the QED-PIC code EPOCH. This new regime of plasma physics sits between conventional laser-plasma physics that everyone is familiar with and the ultra high energy regime where you're simply doing particle physics with lasers. The new processes change to some degree almost every plasma physics process, requiring reanalysis of otherwise well understood processes.

I was previously the lead developer on the EPOCH and ODIN large scale plasma simulation codes before returing to science.

Contact Details

telephone:
44 (0) 24 76151003

fax:
44 (0) 24 76150897

email:
C.S.Brady@Warwick.ac.uk

office:
PS104