WVU
researchers Mark Koepke and Earl Scime are devoting their lives
and their work to phenomena occurring naturally in space, but
they are incredibly down-to-earth when it comes to producing
cutting-edge research.
Specifically, they are researching phenomena related to the sun
and "space weather," a field that involves plasma physics
and commands international attention with worldwide implications.
Koepke's research, for example, is regularly cited in leading
publications by researchers around the world because he has changed
the plasma community's view of the importance of variations in
plasma conditions over small distances. Whereas researchers would
routinely ignore these variations by averaging over them, Koepke
has shown that a new type of plasma wave exists because of such
variations.
And a special "neutral atom camera" on which Scime
worked was on board last year when the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration launched the IMAGE satellite. Already, Scime
and collaborators on the project are receiving data about plasma
occurrences in space.
"Almost every year since I've been here we've had scientists
or students from the U.S. or abroad
spend from a week to a couple of months
here to perform joint experiments or just to learn new techniques
to take back home," Koepke said. "It's great for us
and for our students."
Indeed, the WVU Physics Department is considered a leader in
space-relevant laboratory plasma physics and has the monetary
support and attention of the National Science Foundation, the
U.S. Department of Energy, and NASA.
This type of funding is essential to a major research institution
such as WVU and indicative of the reputation the program has
as a significant contributor to space plasma physics. Such self-supporting
research groups are like a small business in the West Virginia
economy, generating overhead money for the general support of
higher education in West Virginia.
The Fourth State of Matter
To understand what Koepke and Scime do, one needs a better idea
of just how intricate their research is.
The two have separate research programs, but both focus on a
major theme of plasma physics related to space weather. Plasma
is often described as the fourth state of matter, the state beyond
a solid, liquid, and gas. In the plasma state, atoms are separated
into negatively charged electrons and positively charged ions,
said Koepke, a WVU professor who built the plasma program from
the ground up in 1987.
"This separation process, called ionization, can be violent,
as in Scime's machine where the atoms slam to get them to ionize—or
it can be quiescent, as in my machine, where the atoms are ionized
upon contact with a rhenium plate," Koepke said. "In
both cases, the charged particles form an ionized gas."
"We're stuck forever trying to explain that we don't experiment
with blood," quipped Scime, an associate professor who was
attracted to WVU in 1995 because of the department's world-class
reputation in space-relevant plasma experiments.
The sun is the most obvious example of natural plasma. As Scime
explains, some scientists believe that long-term changes in plasma
conditions on the sun may affect Earth's regular climate, but
more obvious to us are the dramatic effects of the sun's short-term
changes on the Earth's space weather.
Space weather can have significant ramifications, such as disrupting
telecommunications and navigation satellites and increasing the
atmospheric drag experienced by orbiting satellites. Major space
storms can even knock out regional electrical power grids, as
occurred in the Quebec province of Canada in 1989.
"Here's how it works: a high-speed stream of plasma flows
outward from the sun in all directions. The Earth is protected
from direct impact of this stream, or 'solar wind,' by the electromagnetic
bubble created by Earth's magnetic field and the plasma trapped
within," Koepke said. Large disturbances in the solar wind
can lead to large disturbances in this "bubble," causing
space weather. One spectacular result of such disturbances is
the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.
"The bubble is called the magnetosphere,
and between the magnetosphere and the Earth's atmosphere is a
comparatively thin layer or plasma called the ionosphere—that
is, if you think 6,000 miles is thin," he said. "My
plasma experiments at WVU are designed to simulate the ionosphere
and the space weather stimulated by the Northern Lights, while
Earl Scime's experiments simulate the magnetosphere and the space
weather stimulated by the solar wind.
"There are similarities in what we do; we just do them under
different conditions with different types of machines. But we're
both studying in the laboratory the phenomena occurring naturally
in space."
Cross-Fertilization
Koepke's laboratory research results have become an essential
resource for interpreting various rocket and satellite observations.
Koepke challenged the traditional thinking in the plasma physics
community and space plasma community when his research indicated
that plasma variations, even when restricted to small regions,
can produce a new type of plasma wave.
Further investigation into these findings, collaboration with
others, refinement of the theory, and independent lab results
improved the understanding of this mechanism even more.
"The WVU experiments produced their first results in 1992,
a more detailed investigation of the theory was published in
1996, and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory experiments on which
we collaborated produced their first results in 1996," Koepke
said. "In 1996, space observers made their first wavelength
measurements of the waves responsible for the most common and
most intense ion heating in the ionosphere and found that the
wavelengths, and other wave properties, matched my lab results.
"Those space observers were the first to claim that the
waves found within the Aurora Borealis were caused by the mechanism
discovered by the WVU experiments."
To further the understanding about space weather, Koepke cultivates
a "cross-fertilization" between lab experimentalists
and space observers in his regular interactions with satellite
and rocket groups in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Koepke
has demonstrated this approach in collaborating with Swedish
space observers to produce a joint manuscript submitted to the
Journal of Geophysical Research about the ion activity
in the ionosphere.
As Koepke explains, lab experimentalists develop physical insights,
theoretical models, and diagnostic methods. Space observers determine
what can be measured in space and try to interpret what is occurring
there.
"Most space observers launch the rocket or satellite and
then look at the data collected, resulting in no direct experience
with real plasmas. On the other hand, most lab plasma physicists
have little knowledge of the critical issues in space plasma
physics, since it takes time and effort to attend the space conferences
and find where the lab can overlap scientifically with specific
space missions," Koepke said. "It is difficult to get
the space observers interested in lab experiments since, to many
of them, the plasma conditions of the lab seem irrelevant to
the plasma conditions in space."
The effort to integrate space and laboratory physics is not only
good for the investigation process, but it "enriches the
learning experience for our students who get exposed to these
multiple perspectives," he said.
This translates especially well when students of the WVU plasma
physics program enter the job market.
"Our students' strength, according to the employers of our
former students, is their broad grasp of the subject, both intellectually
and technically. I think this feature can be attributed to the
cross- fertilization in which the professors are engaged,"
Koepke said.
In the true spirit of university outreach, this type of approach
also is applied to several disciplines in the public schools
across West Virginia. Koepke was chosen to join other faculty
members, graduate students, and public school teachers in the
TIGERS program—Team of Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellows
Engaged to Reinvigorate Students-that reaches out to students
in K-12 in the fields of engineering, science, and mathematics.
A related but secondary component of Koepke's research involves
nonlinear plasma dynamics, which has to do with the properties
and behavior of plasma waves influenced by the presence of other
plasma waves. He notes that nearly all applications of plasma
physics in coming years will involve nonlinear effects, and so
it is a cutting-edge area of study.
Koepke travelled to Germany last fall to lead experiments that
grew directly from nonlinear dynamics experiments he led in Germany
in 1999 and at WVU five years ago.
Fundamental Principles
At the same time, Scime is breaking new ground with his research
of the physics of plasmas in the magnetosphere. He played a key
role in developing a neutral atom camera that was aboard the
IMAGE satellite launched by NASA last March. (IMAGE stands for
Imager for Magnetopause to Auroral Global Exploration.) This
camera records atoms being emitted from the Earth's magnetosphere.
Scime and his graduate student on the project, Matthew M. Balkey,
attended the launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Within weeks Scime received the news he was awaiting.
"A few weeks after the launch the instruments were slowly
brought up to their operating voltages. I was pleased to see
that the completely new method of imaging plasmas used by the
camera appears to work," Scime said. "The principle
scientific results so far are that this type of neutral atom
camera does work and we have observed periods of enhanced neutral
atom emission during substorms, events when lots of plasma is
dumped into the Earth's magnetosphere."
Scime is quick to point out that hundreds of scientists were
involved in the overall IMAGE project, and the Southwest Research
Institute of San Antonio, Texas, is the lead institution for
the neutral atom camera on which he worked. Its principal investigator,
Dr. Craig Pollock , visited WVU in October to meet with Scime
and his research team as part of this continuing project.
Scime, a winner of WVU's outstanding teaching award, also has
submitted a series of papers about new plasma diagnostic techniques,
the physics of plasma sources that can be used for materials
processing, and the laboratory simulation of plasma phenomena
that occur naturally in the Earth's magnetosphere.
"Our space simulation work shows that particular space phenomena
can be reproduced in the laboratory," he said. "This
discovery has potentially important implications for understanding
large-scale plasma systems, such as those near Earth.
"For us to see these phenomena in the laboratory suggests
that the physics responsible for those space phenomena must be
very robust and common to a broad range of physical systems,"
he said. "In other words, if the same processes happen over
and over again in different types of plasma, those processes
may represent some fundamental principles which many plasma systems
obey."
The Payoff
The cutting-edge research conducted by Scime and Koepke has very
tangible results beyond what is learned in the highly technical
plasma physics and space-related plasma physics communities:
student success in the job market, monetary research support
for WVU, and recognition internationally for excellence in education,
particularly research education.
Central to teaching is getting students involved in the research.
"It is important for WVU faculty to involve students in
research. By attending a research university instead of a four-year
college, undergraduates get a chance to participate in cutting-edge
research activities," Scime said.
"We know these activities make a difference in the training
of our graduate students and undergraduate students. We see this
in their excitement for physics, the skills they leave WVU with
that are eagerly sought after by other research groups, and that
they have all found gainful employment or graduate school opportunities
after leaving WVU."
Just a few of the success stories include two former WVU students
who are now ranking researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
in Washington, D.C., an assistant professor conducting laser-produced
plasma research at Eastern Michigan University, a post-doctoral
researcher who is now at the University of Michigan, and several
undergraduates who have received Goldwater and WVU Foundation
scholar-ships.
"I tell prospective students that it is hard to find a place
where they have more contact with professors than here,"
Koepke said. "The combination of the level of research being
done and the amount of professor contact gives our students a
huge advantage. Our graduates compete exceptionally well with
people from top-tier institutions."
Posted on the laboratory wall is a motto that speaks to Koepke's
philosophy. It reads: "We develop human capital; the cutting
edge just happens to be where we do it."