Cary Forest, a professor of physics and lead researcher for the new Wisconsin Plasma Physics Laboratory (WiPPL), stands next to the Big Red Plasma Ball in Sterling Hall. The Big Red Plasma Ball is one ...

Ball lightning - a slow-moving ball of light that is occasionally seen at ground level during thunderstorms - has puzzled scientists for centuries. There have also been reports of ball lightning in ...

MADISON - The sun's solar wind affects nearly everything in the solar system. It can disrupt the function of Earth's satellites and creates the lights of the auroras. A new study by University of ...

Plasma physics is the study of charged particles and fluids interacting with self-consistent electric and magnetic fields. It is a basic research discipline that has many different areas of ...

Among the intriguing issues in plasma physics are those surrounding X-ray pulsars -- collapsed stars that orbit around a cosmic companion and beam light at regular intervals, like lighthouses in the ...

Quantum field theories are powerful tools for particle physics and condensed matter physics but are rarely used in plasma physics. However, in warm-dense regimes, where matter is partially ionized and ...

Plasma physics is the study of a state of matter comprising charged particles. Plasmas are usually created by heating a gas until the electrons become detached from their parent atom or molecule. This ...

To reach one of the world's most secretive nuclear-fusion companies, visitors must wind their way through a suburban office park at the foot of the Santa Ana Mountains, just east of Irvine, California ...

Physicists have set a new upper bound on the interaction strength of dark matter by simulating the collision of two clouds of interstellar plasma. The result, from researchers at Ruhr University ...

A new study by physicists mimicked solar winds in the lab, confirming how they develop and providing an Earth-bound model for the future study of solar physics. The sun's solar wind affects nearly ...