Simulations & Interactive Learning
Four browser widgets, each aimed at a place where the algebra of PC368 hides the physics. Nothing is pre-rendered: the orbit lab integrates real equations of motion in your browser, and the wave explorer solves the actual quartic dispersion relation at every pixel.
Live
- Drift orbit lab — a Boris pusher in six field configurations. Watch the guiding centre separate from the orbit, and watch ions and electrons drift opposite ways in ∇B but together in E×B
- Debye shielding lab — set any density and temperature and see the screened potential, the Debye sphere, and whether you still have a plasma at all
- Cold plasma wave explorer — both roots of the cold-plasma dispersion relation versus frequency, with every cutoff and resonance found numerically as you sweep the propagation angle
- Reconnection rate lab — Sweet–Parker against Petschek against observation, and the several-orders-of-magnitude embarrassment between them
How to use these
Each page has a Things to try list. They are ordered so that the surprising result comes second or third — do them in order rather than dragging sliders at random. Every widget also works standalone; the physics is in the page source if you want to read it.
Where each one belongs in the course
| Lecture | Topic | Widget |
|---|---|---|
| Lec 1–2 | Plasma parameters, Debye shielding | Debye shielding lab |
| Lec 7–8 | Single-particle motion, drifts, mirrors | Drift orbit lab |
| Lec 13 | Cold plasma waves, cutoffs and resonances | Cold plasma wave explorer |
| Lec 16–17 | Reconnection, Sweet–Parker | Reconnection rate lab |
The computational sequel
Everything here is a canned calculation — the field models are prescribed, not solved for. The graduate course PHY653 removes that scaffolding: you write the particle pusher yourself, then let the particles make their own fields.