Science AMA Series: I’m Jena Meinecke, an Oxford fellow studying the
origins of magnetic fields in the universe. Next week I’m doing an
experiment with the world’s largest laser at Lawrence Livermore N
Abstract
Hi, Reddit! I’ve literally prepared for years and travelled around the
world for an experiment I’m doing next week. And I’m super excited to
geek out with you all about it. I’ll be using the world’s largest laser
– the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California – to figure out how magnetic fields came into
existence in our universe. It’s a question that’s consumed me and driven
years of research: I’ve used other high-energy lasers to create scaled
galaxy clusters and supernovas that could fit in the palm of your hand.
Using these cosmic objects, I’ve generated seed magnetic fields—the
“grandparent” fields of our universe and amplified them to current
observations. But to be able to understand the origins of magnetic
fields, I’ll need to measure one of the most coveted phenomena in
laboratory astrophysics: turbulent dynamo. There’s only one laser on
Earth that can tell us the origins of magnetic fields in our universe,
and that’s the NIF laser. We have three shots to gather our data, and
next week we will take our first shot! So that’s what gets me up in the
morning. I’m incredibly excited to share our journey with YOU! What
would you like to know? AMA!!! Bio:
https://www2.physics.ox.ac.uk/contacts/people/meinecke Publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/J_Meinecke/publications Epic
laser: https://lasers.llnl.gov/ I’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6
pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! I’m here at the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the National Ignition
Facility, THE BIGGEST LASER ON EARTH, is just across the road!!! Your
questions are WONDERFUL and I’ll start answering them now. UPDATE: We
are wrapping up here and there are many people with pizza sitting close
to me. I need to deal with this…. I LOVED your questions and wish
I could keep the conversation going. Please feel free to follow my
updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jena_Meinecke. SIX MORE DAYS
UNTIL SHOTS!!! I will definitely be tweeting. Look out for updates!