University of Minnesota
School of Physics & Astronomy
Home > People >

John Wygant

Professor

371 Tate, 626-8921, email jwygant @ ham.space.umn.edu
http://ham.space.umn.edu
Wygantweb.jpg

Current Research

My interests include spacecraft measurement of electric fields and particle acceleration in
space plasmas. Some of the topics we investigate are the structure and dynamics of
collisionless shocks and nonlinear wave modes, auroral acceleration mechanisms, energy
release due to magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration and radiation belts, and
the large scale convection of magnetospheric plasmas. I am currently the Principal
Investigator on the Electric Fields and Waves Instrument on NASA's Radiation Belt Storm
Probes. Launch is scheduled for May of 2012.

Graduate Students and Postdoctorates

Lei Dai
Alyssa Hamre
Scott Thaller
Sheng Tian

Selected Publications

J. R. Wygant, A. Keiling, C. A. Cattell, R. L. Lysak, M. Temerin, C. A. Kletzing and J. D. Scudder, F. S. Mozer,V. Streltsov, W. Lotko, C. T. Russell, Evidence for Kinetic Alfven Waves and parallel electron energyization at 4-6 Re altitudes in the plasmasheet boundary layer, J. of Geophys. Res., 2002 [abstract]

J. R. Wygant, C. A. Cattell, R. Lysak, J. Dombeck,J. McFadden, F.S. Mozer, C.W. Carlson, I. Roth, M. Temerin, E.A. Lucek, A. Balogh, M. Andre, H. Reme , Cluster spacecraft observations of the structure of the normal component the electric and its relation to ballistic acceleration of mono-energetic ion beams across a thin reconnecting current layer, J. of Geophys. Res., 2005 [abstract]

J. Wygant, Polar Spacecraft Based Comparisons of Intense Electric Fields and Poynting Flux Near and Within the Plasma Sheet-Tail Lobe Boundary to UVI Images: An Energy Source for the Aurora, J. Geophys. Res. (2000).

D. Rowland and J. Wygant, Dependence of the Large Scale Electric Field in the Inner Magnetosphere on Geomagnetic Activity, J. Geophys Res. (1998).

J. Wygant, Role of the Large Scale Electric Field in the Inner Magnetosphere in the Generation of the Ring Current Plasma, J. Geophys. Res. (1998).

J. Wygant, Large Amplitude Electric and Magnetic Field Signatures in the Inner Magnetosphere During an SSC Induced Injection of 15 MeV Electron Drift Echoes, Geophys. Res. Lett., 21, 16, 1739-1742 (1994).

J. Wygant, Electric Field Measurements at Sub-Critical, Oblique Bow Shock Crossings, J. Geophys. Res., 92, 11, 109 (1987).

Education

Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1983. Experimental Space Plasma Physics.