Rusko Ruskov, DPHIL ATOMIC AND LASER PHYSICS
I started my DPhil in Prof Norreys’ group in 2022, after receiving a Master’s in Physics from Oxford. My intrests lie in the theory of broadband laser-plasma instabilities, plasma turbulence, and inertial fusion in general.
Broadband lasers have been known to subtantially reduce parametric instability growth but their theoretical description has been difficult. Recently, the mathematical aparatus of the phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics, namely the Weyl symbol calculus, has been integral to some advances in plasma turbulence in tokamaks. There is a connection between bandwith effects on parametric instabilities and turbulence since both involve broadband fields. During my first year of the DPhil, I have been investigating the broadband two plasmon decay. The symbol calculus allowed me to generalise the theory of the instability to include broadband laser fields with arbitrary statistical properties.
My master’s thesis was on the topic of the saturation of the beam-plasma instability as relevant to the auxiliary heating concept for ICF. I also have experience with the optimisation of ICF target designs. This has involved running large computer simulations on the ARCHER2 and SCARF supercomputers.
Email:
rusko.ruskov@physics.ox.ac.uk
Oxford Physics Page: https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/ruskov