Hayk Hakobyan

Postdoc

Hayk has a joint position in Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Columbia University. He is interested in fundamental plasma physical processes that govern energy dissipation and particle acceleration in the magnetospheres surrounding compact objects, such as neutron stars and black holes. The dynamics of these extreme plasmas are largely governed by quantum electrodynamic processes that couple charged particles with the emitted light. To study these phenomena Hayk uses novel numerical algorithms for QED processes incorporated in first-principles plasma simulations using particle-in-cell approach.