Professor of Mathematics

Director, HU Center for Nuclear Fusion Research and Training

Education:

BS in Physics, St. Xavier’s College, India (1971)

MS in Physics, University School of Science, India (1973)

MS in Physics, College of William and Mary, USA (1980)

PhD in Physics, College of William and Mary, USA (1983)

E-mail: alkesh.punjabi@hamptonu.edu

Research Areas:

Specialization: Nonlinear Dynamics and Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion

Description: Tokamaks are controlled thermonuclear fusion devices that use magnetic fields to confine extremely hot plasmas. In tokamaks, we attempt to reach conditions required to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion in laboratory. Tokamaks are the most successful scheme for controlled fusion to date. Tokamaks have the shape of doughnut. In mathematics, this is called a torus. Modern tokamaks have divertors. Divertors divert the plasma away and keep impurities from infiltrating the main body plasma. Tokamaks with divertors are called divertor tokamaks. Trajectories of magnetic field lines in divertor tokamaks are archetypal of one and a half degree of Hamiltonian system. Asymmetries cause chaos in motion of field lines in divertor tokamaks. This area of research is modern, rich and exciting in mathematical and physics research, and critically important for success of fusion. I thesis advice PhD students in Physics, and MS students in Applied Mathematics. These graduate students conduct their theses research in application of nonlinear dynamics to motion of field lines in divertor tokamaks. If you are interested to know more about my research, I welcome you to come, and I will talk to you, and discuss research that interests you and interests me. I also mentor undergraduate students, and high school students in fusion research. Research involves mathematical concepts such as catastrophes, chaos, fractals, bifurcations, strange attractors, homoclinic tangles; and physics concepts such as 1 ½ degree of freedom Hamiltonians, symplecticity, Lie algebras, KAM Theorem, magnetic barriers, and so on. My research combines applied mathematics, physics, and computational science.

Publications:

I have authored/.coauthored more than 35 refereed papers, and more than 100 contributed papers. My most famous papers are:

Catastrophes in Elmo Bumpy Torus

           G. Vahala, A. Punjabi and E. G. Harris

           Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 680-683 (1982)

Stochastic Broadening of the Separatrix of a Tokamak Divertor

           A. Punjabi, A. Verma and A. Boozer

           Phys. Rev. Lett. 69, 3322-3325 (1992)

Effect of magnetic perturbations on tokamak divertors

            A. Punjabi, H. Ali, T. Evans, and A. Boozer

            Phys. Lett. A 364, 140–145 (2007)

Recent publications:

Effect of magnetic perturbations on tokamak divertors

            Alkesh Punjabi, Halima Ali, Todd Evans, Allen Boozer

            Phys. Lett. A 364, 140–145 (2007)

Effects of low and high mode number tearing modes in divertor tokamaks

            Alkesh Punjabi, Halima Ali, Allen Boozer, and Todd Evans

             Phys. Plasmas 14, 082503 (2007)

Building magnetic barriers in tokamaks

            Halima Ali and Alkesh Punjabi

            Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 49, 1565–1582 (2007)

Simple Map in action-angle coordinates

            Olivia Kerwin*, Alkesh Punjabi, and Halima Ali

            Phys. Plasmas 15, 072504 (2008)

Modeling of stochastic broadening in a poloidally diverted discharge with piecewise analytic symplectic mapping flux functions

            Alkesh Punjabi, Halima Ali, Todd Evans, and Allen Boozer

            Phys. Plasmas 15, 082507 (2008)

* graduate student

Collaborators:

Halima Ali, Hampton University

Allen Boozer, Professor of Applied Physics, Columbia University, New York

Todd Evans, Chief Scientist, DIII-D Divertor, General Atomics, San Diego