Research Interests of C. P. Price

At present I am investigating the possibility that the magnetospheric dynamics involves a large number of largely independent dynamical elements which act in a self-organized manner; the paradigm for self-organized critical systems is the sandpile. However, the magnetospheric system will differ from the sandpile in a significant way: it is strongly driven (frequently overdriven) by a stochastic driver, and this distinction presents interesting possibilities for future work. This paper reports the R/S analysis of measures of both the solar wind and the electrojet activity; apparently the solar wind measurements are consistent with a self-organized critical state, which the global electrojet activity measurements appear to reflect, while the local electrojet activity measurements might indicate a different type of self-organized critical state within the magnetosphere. In May 2001 I gave an invited talk at the 1st Dynamics of Complex Systems conference on "Self-Organized Criticality in the Magnetosphere", reviewing the history of research into the magnetospheric response to the solar wind driver.

My research interests include model independent investigations of the nonlinear coupling between the solar wind and the magnetosphere, and of the internal dynamics of the driven magnetospheric current system. I make extensive use of the tools of nonlinear dynamics ("chaos") and self-organized systems; an outgrowth of this is an on-going and fairly successful prediction of future sunspot activity use a nonlinear predictor. Several of these projects have involved summer REU students. I have also supervised undergraduate and high school research projects in various areas (nonlinear analysis of sunspot numbers, electrical conductivity of air as a function of humidity, non-linear electrical circuits, modeling impact craters, the finite epoch of total solar eclipses, acoustical physics of tympani). Previous (but not necessarily moribund) research interests include low frequency plasma waves in space, neutron star dynamics and extremely high density equations of state. (For a complete overview, see my list of published papers.)

Since my primary research tool is a computer of one form or another, I have a strong interest in computer systems as well. I have experience at all levels of platforms from PCs to massively parallel supercomputers, administer three systems (one Linux and two Unix, including UAF's first web server), and have served on the advisory board for UAF's Arctic Region Supercomputing Center since it started. I am the Society of Physics Students advisor; recently, we have begun a project to create a HPC cluster in the Physics Department computer lab.

18-Dec-2001