Gary Zank

Professor and Pei-Ling Chan Chair of Physics
Director, CSPAR

Research Areas

My research interests range from space physics to astrophysics to laboratory plasma physics. I use a combination of large computer simulations, modeling, and analysis to address problems of interest and the results are then related, where possible, to observations. In space physics, my activities encompass the physics of the solar corona and solar wind acceleration, the interaction of the solar wind with the non-magnetized bodies, the interplanetary medium (turbulence, shock waves, solar wind composition, neutral and charged particle transport, particle acceleration, solar energetic particles and cosmic rays, dust, etc.), and the interaction of the heliosphere with the local interstellar medium (LISM). I maintain an active research program in several areas of plasma astrophysics, focusing primarily but not exclusively on galactic cosmic rays, the interstellar medium, galactic magnetic fields, and the interaction of stellar winds with their local interstellar environment

Education

• BSc, 1982, University of Natal
• BSc(Hons.), 1983, University of Natal
• PhD, 1987, University of Natal

Employment

• July 2008: Chan Chair of Physics, University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Director, Center for Space and Aeronomical Research (CSPAR)
• January 2006: Chancellor’s Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside
• September 2005: System-wide Director, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP)
• July 2001 – July 2008: Director, University of California, Riverside, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP), and Professor (Step IX), Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside
• July 1999 – June 2001: Full Professor (with tenure), Bartol Research Institute, University of Delaware
• July – August 1999: Visiting Scholar at the Research Center for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Sydney
• September 1994 – July 1999: Associate Professor (with tenure), Bartol Research Institute.
• July 1991 – September 1994: Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Bartol Research Institute.
• September 1989 – July 1991: Bartol Research Institute Post-Doctoral Research Associate
• March 1989 – August 1989: Post-Doctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Aeronomie, Lindau, FRG (Prof. W.I. Axford)
• March 1987 – February 1989: Post-Doctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik, Heidelberg, FRG (Prof. H.J. Voelk).
• 1986: Lecturer in the Dept of Mathematics & Applied Mathematics, University of Natal (part-time).

Past Graduate Students

• Todd Story, Ph.D., 1995. Dissertation Title: “Shock Waves in the Heliosphere.”
• Ross Bedros, Ph.D., 2008. Dissertation Title: “Quasi-perpendicular Shock Waves in the Heliosphere.”
• Xianzhi Ao, Ph.D., 2008. Dissertation Title: “Interaction of Turbulence with Shock Waves.”
• Peter Hunana, Ph.D., 2008. Dissertation Title: “Turbulence in the inhomogeneous solar wind”

Current Graduate Students

• Sean Cox, Ph.D.
• Brian Fayock, Ph.D

External Funding

• Research funding from NASA, NSF, DOE.

Awards

• Max-Planck-Post-Doctoral-Fellowship, 1987 - 1989.
• NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1994).
• Zeldovich Medal (1996) [awarded jointly by COSPAR and The Russian Academy of Sciences to Young Scientists (< 36 years old)].
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Fellow, The American Physical Society
• Chancellor’s Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside

Books

• Particle Acceleration in Cosmic Plasmas, Ed.s Zank, G.P. and T.K. Gaisser, AIP Conference Proceedings 264, New York (1992).
• Editor of The Journal of Plasma Physics, David Montgomery 60th Birthday Special Editions, Volume 56, Part 3 (1996) and Volume 57, Part 1 (1997).
• Physics of the Outer Heliosphere: Third Annual IGPP Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings 719, Ed.’s V. Florinski, N.V. Pogorelov, and G.P. Zank (2004).
• The Physics of Collisionless Shocks: Fourth Annual IGPP Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings, 781, Ed.’s Gang Li, G.P. Zank, C. Russell, and J. Gosling, (2005).
• Physics of the Inner Heliosheath: Fifth Annual IGPP Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings, 858, Ed.’s J. Heerikhuisen, V. Florinski, G.P. Zank, and N.V. Pogorelov, New York (2006).
• The Numerical modeling of Space Plasma Flows, ed.’s Nikolai Pogorelov, J. Raeder, H. Yee, and G.P. Zank, Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, in press (2007).
• Turbulence and Nonlinear Processes in Astrophysical Plasma; 6th Annual IGPP Astrophysics Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings, 932, ed.’s Dastgeer Shaikh and G.P. Zank, (2008).

Representative Presentations and Papers

• Modelling the interaction of the solar wind with the local interstellar medium: A theoretical perspective by G.P. Zank, Space Science Reviews, 89, 3-4, 1-275 (1999).
• Interstellar Pick-up Ions and Perpendicular Shocks: Implications for the Termination Shock and Interplanetary Shocks by G.P. Zank, H.L. Pauls, I.H. Cairns and G.M. Webb, The Journal of Geophysical Research (Space), 101, 457-577 (1996).
• Interaction of the Solar Wind with the Local Interstellar Medium by H.L. Pauls, G.P. Zank and L.L. Williams, The Journal of Geophysical Research (Space), 100, 21,595-21,604 (1995).
• Particle acceleration at coronal mass ejection driven shocks: A theoretical model by G.P. Zank, W.K.M. Rice, and C.C. Wu, The Journal of Geophysical Research (Space), 105, A11, 25,079-25,095 (2000).
• Nearly Incompressible Fluids II: Magnetohydrodynamics, Turbulence and Waves by G.P. Zank and W.H. Matthaeus, Physics of Fluids A, 5, 257-273 (1993).
 
• Evolution of Turbulent Magnetic Fluctuation Power with Heliospheric Distance by G.P. Zank, W.H. Matthaeus and C.W. Smith, The Journal of Geophysical Research (Space), 101, 17,093-17,107 (1996).
• Density spectrum in the diffuse interstellar medium and solar wind, by S. Dastgeer and G.P. Zank, The Astrophysical Journal, Letters, 602, Issue 1, pp. L29-L32 (2004).
• Three-dimensional features of the outer heliosphere due to coupling between the interstellar and interplanetary magnetic fields: II. The effect of neutral atoms, by N.V. Pogorelov, G.P. Zank, and T. Ogino, The Astrophysical Journal  644, Issue 2, 1299-1316 (2006).
• Magnetic structures in the heliosheath by K. Avinash and G.P. Zank, Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L05106, doi:10.1029/2006GL028582 (2007). 
• Particle acceleration at interplanetary shocks by G.P. Zank, Gang Li, and Olga Verkhoglyadova, Space Science Reviews, 130, 255-272 (2007).