Merav Opher's Webpage

George Mason University
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Computational Group for Astrophysics and Space Physics


Computational Group for Astrophysics 
and Space Physics

Merav Opher

Associate Professor

Group Webpage

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research

News about Opher's research

2all,
Office: 363B Sci & Tech I
MSN 3F3
George Mason University
(703) 993-4571

mopher@gmu.edu

Administrative Assistant:

Mari-Elainde Triolo
(703) 993-1264
Office hours: TR 10am-3pm or by appointment

Announcements

Graduate positions available
Postdoc position available

PAWARDED the 2007 PECASE (Presidential Early Career Award)

Movie as part of the American Museum of Natural History
"Journey to Stars Show"

Research: Magnetic Field Processes in Space

Research Fields

Shock Physics
Magnetized Winds
Interaction of Solar System with Interstellar Medium
Coronal Mass Ejection Evolutions
Solar-Like Stars

Courses

Magnetic Field in Astrophysics (ASTR 790)
Space Plasma Physics (PHYS/ASTR 760)
Introduction to Astronomy II (ASTR 113)
Electrodynamic (PHYS 305)

Curriculum Vitae

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My research interests are magnetic field processes in space physics and astrophysics, particularly how magnetic field affect the interstellar medium, disks around young stars, solar, stellar winds, jets and the early universe. I am using sophisticated state-of-the-art numerical modeling as experiments in conjunction with new theoretical approaches and observational data.

I am also interested in developing new computational models (such as coupling Kinetic-MHD models; PIC Codes-MHD; new AMR techniques, etc).

Voyager 1 and 2, the most distant man-made objects are right now probing the confines of the solar system. It is believed that Voyager 1 in December 15, 2004 has exited the Termination Shock, the first boundary of the solar system, and now is going through the turbulent region the Heliosheath where magnetic effects are crucial. Voyager 2 in the August of 2007 crossed the shock going southward from Voyager 1.

Recently we predicted that the heliosphere is asymmetric and were able to match the Voyager 1 and 2 particle observations. By matching the radio data and particle we are able to find the plane of the interstellar magnetic field plane.

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Bio

In 2005 Merav Opher joined the departments of Department of Physics and Astronomy of George Mason University.

Merav Opher received a B.A from the University of SÃ£o Paulo, Brazil in 1992 and a Ph.D. in plasma astrophysics from the Astronomy Department of the University of SÃ£o Paulo, Brazil in 1998. We worked as scientific staff at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and from 1999-2001. From 2001-2004 she was a Caltech Postdoctoral Scholar at JPL. Her previous post-doctoral experience was working in plasma astrophysics in the plasma group at UCLA. There she worked with George Morales, Jean Noel Leuboff and John Dawson. Her research involved the study of the effects of electromagnetic fluctuations on nuclear reaction rates. Because the reaction rates are very sensitive to the high energy region of the particle spectrum, they can be affected by distortion of the particle distributions due to electromagnetic fluctuations. until coming to George Mason University. Previously, she was a Caltech postdoctoral fellow working with Paulett Liewer (JPL) and Tamas Gombosi (University of Michigan). Before coming to JPL, she spent two years as a postdoctoral associate in the Cal

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