Personal information:

Name: Ron Arad Home Address: Maagal Hashalom 1, Rishon le Zion, Israel. Work Address: Plasma Laboratory, Dept. of Particle Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100, Rehovot, Israel. Home phone: 972-3-961-7056 Work phone: 972-8-934-2211 Cell phone: 972-56-292-371 Fax: 972-8-934-3491 e-mail:fnarad@plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il Date of birth: 1965 Marital status: Married to Orit + three kids: Keren, Shay, and Amit.

Academic history:

2001-2003:  Continuing research in the Plasma Laboratory at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovot as a Post. Doc. Main interests: the implications of small-scale density flucturations and the onset of turbulence to rapid magnetic field penetration into plasmas.

1993-2001:  Experimental reseach of the interaction of a pulsed magnetic field with a plasma in a  microsecond plasma opening switch configuration.  Studies towards a Ph.D degree at the Weizmann Insitute of Science. Thesis submitted March 2001 (Thesis Abstract).

1990-1993: I continued physics studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
in the plasma Laboratory to obtain an M.Sc. degree. My thesis titled:"Electron temperature and particle densities in a current carrying plasma" in a configuration called a nanosecond plasma opening switch.

1987-1990: I studied physics in Tel-Aviv University for my B.Sc. degree.

1981-1983:  I learned physics in high school.

Current research interests:

The main goals of the research I conducted during the past 9 years was aimed at understanding the details of the interaction between a magnetic field and a plasma under conditions in which plasma pushing by the magnetic field gradients and magnetic field penetration into the plasma are comparable. This regime is realized for magnetic fields (B~10 kG), electron densities (n_e~10¹⁵ cm^-3), time scales (t < 1 microsecond), and space scales on the order of a few centimeters.

1. The onset of hydrodynamic turbulence that leads to the development of small-scale structures is suggested as a mechanism for rapid field penetration. The Hall mechanism or better known as electron magnetohydrodynamics (EMHD), can explain the observed magnetic field penetration if the typical length scale of density gradients is ~1 mm rather than the 2.5 cm anode-cathode gap.
2. The penetration results from diffusion due to the onset of turbulence that significantly enhances the plasma collisionality over the clasical Spitzer collisionality. 

The future

• Improve the diagnostics to allow for direct measurements of small-scale fluctuations.
• Improve existing spectroscopic techniques to measure electric fields in the plasma by implementing Laser Induced Flourecence (LIF).
• Control the plasma composition and study the dependence of the ion dynamics on the density of the protons.

List of publications:

JOURNAL PAPERS

1. R. Arad, R. E. H. Clark, G. Dadusc, G. Davara, R. E. Duvall, A. Fisher, V. Fisher, M. E. Foord, A. Fruchtman, L. Gregorian, Ya. E. Krasik, C. Litwin, Y. Maron, L. Perelmutter, M. Sarfaty, E. Sarid, S. Shkolnikova, R. Shpitalnik, L. Troyanski, and A. Weingarten, Visible-Light Spectroscopy of Pulsed Power Plasmas, Rev. Sci. Instr. 63(10), 5127 (1992). 

2. M. Sarfaty, Y. Maron, Ya. E. Krasik, A. Weingarten, R. Arad, R. Shpitalnik, A. Fruchtman, and S. Alexiou, Spectroscopic Investigation of the Plasma Behavior in a Plasma Opening Switch, Physics of Plasmas 2(6), 2122 (1995). 

3. M. Sarfaty, R. Shpitalnik, R. Arad,A. Weingarten, Ya. E. Krasik, A. Fruchtman, and Y. Maron, Spectroscopic Investigation of Fast (ns) Magnetic Field Penetration in a Plasma, Physics of Plasmas 2(6), 2583 (1995). 

4. R. Arad, L. Ding, and Y. Maron, A Novel Gas Doping Technique for Local Spectroscopic Measurements in Pulsed Power Devices, Rev. Sci. Instr. 69(3), 1529 (1998).

5. R. Arad, K. Tsigutkin, Yu.V. Ralchenko, and Y. Maron, Spectroscopic investigations of a dielectric-surface-discharge plasma source , Physics of Plasmas 7, 3797 (2000).
   

6. A. Weingarten, R. Arad, A. Fruchtman, and Y. Maron, Ion separation due to magnetic field penetration into a multi-species plasma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 115004 (2001).
   
   
7. N. Chakrabarti, A. Fruchtman, R. Arad and Y. Maron, Hydromagnetic waves in three component plasmas , Physics Letters A 297,92 (2002).
   
   
8. R. Arad, K. Tsigutkin, A. Fruchtman, J. D. Huba, and Y. Maron, Observation of faster-than-diffusion magnetic field penetration into a plasma, Physics of Plasmas 10, 112 (2003).
   
   
9. R. Arad, K. Tsigutkin, Yu. V. Ralchenko, A. Fruchtman, and Y. Maron, 'Investigation of the ion dynamics in a multi-species plasma under pulsed magnetic fields', to be submitted to Physics of Plasmas.
              
10. R. Arad, Yu. V. Ralchenko, and Y. Maron, ‘Spectroscopic evidence for a non-Maxwellian electron energy distribution in a pulsed current-carrying plasma’, to be submitted to Physical Review E. 

 Or you can download a word file with my complete list of publications (including papers presented in conference proceedings).

Family:

I got married to this lovely lady called Orit. That was in December 1992.

In September 1996 my daughter Keren was born and she has influenced my work very much. It turns out that my best thoughts were formulated around 5 a.m. after feeding her and trying to fall asleep again.

A year later, in November 98 my son Shay was born. One thing is clear; boys are different than girls, at least as far as my kids are concerned.
On December 24, 2002 Amit was born.

Picture gallery:

Here are a few pictures from the lab:

Some family pictures:

Various: