Project description
Collaborative research on turbulent hydrodynamics in optics and condensed matter
Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the HALT project will bring together scientists from world-leading institutions who specialise in nonlinear optics, classical hydrodynamics and statistical physics to study one of the most important phenomena in nature and engineering: turbulence. The project will combine theoretical and experimental research to produce an array of novel optical and condensed matter experiments to investigate the role of optical coherent structures, such as solitons and vortices, embedded in turbulent dynamics. In doing so, HALT will develop new theoretical kinetic approaches in the description of these coherent structures and probe the hydrodynamic nature of light to better understand optical turbulence.
Objective
HALT (Hydrodynamic Approach to Light Turbulence) is a research focussed training initiative consisting of world-leading institutions in the multidisciplinary fields of nonlinear optics, classical hydrodynamics, and statistical physics. Through the proposed network, the overarching research objective is to develop new pathways in the understanding of one of the most important unsolved problems in physics: the structure of turbulence, while simultaneously training a new generation of early-stage researchers in scientific and non-scientific topics such as the media relations, scientific communication, modern open-science polices, website design, intellectual property rights, and various research knowledge and skills related to the HALT programme.
Using nonlinear optics as a testbed, due to its inherent analogies to idealised compressible fluid flow, both theoreticians and experimentalists will, under close collaboration with each other, produce an array of novel optical and condensed matter experiments and systematically develop new revolutionary theoretical kinetic approaches to probe and understand the hydrodynamic nature of light. Through new advances in the understanding of optical turbulence, the ambition of the consortium, composed of European partners coupled with institutions from Brazil, Russia, China and Japan, is to make meaningful connections to classical hydrodynamic turbulence to push the frontiers of the global turbulence research community. The global HALT network will forge strong collaborative relationships between theoreticians and experimentalists and lead to a new sustainable era of collective research in the turbulence community.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Coordinator
B4 7ET Birmingham
United Kingdom