Erik Hansen

Hello! I'm a late stage PhD student working with Professor Morrison, Professor Mahajan, and Dr. Hatch on studying plasma turbulence. I grew up in Modesto, CA, and I did my undergraduate degree in Physics and Math at UC Irvine, where I worked with Professor Bill Heidbrink on properties of phase variation of Alfvén eigenmodes. Most of my work has focused on fluid descriptions of plasma. Specifically, I'm using a 3D pseudospectral simulation of Hall MHD to study the role of resonant three-wave interactions in Hall MHD turbulence and the effect of circular polarization of Alfvén waves in Hall MHD on the energy transfer and turbulent structure. I'm also turning towards what types of chaotic dynamics are supported by a thermodynamically consistent description of turbulence in the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation.