We invite diploma, master, and graduate (doctoral) students to enrol in any of our research or development projects. Through our long-term close cooperation with the Uppsala University graduate school in fundamental physics, gradU, and graduate school in advanced instrumentation and measurements, AIM, we offer an internationally respected, high-quality PhD education fit for research, teaching and management careers both in Academia and in industry.

The scientific activities in the IRF `Physics in Space' (PHISP) Research Programme in Uppsala concern fundamental space physics, and involve studies of the physical principles, laws and mechanisms which control the Earth's interaction with its space habitat by using experimental, theoretical, and computer simulation methods. The PHISP Research Programme has an extensive collaboration with national and international research groups in space physics, astrophysics, radio science and IT research, and with industry.

In the experimental part of the PHISP research we utilise satellites such as Cluster and the International Space Station (IS)) as well as ground-based research infrastructures and facilities such as LOIS in Scandinavia, and LOFAR in Netherlands, and similar facilities in Puerto Rico, Russia, and the USA. Our skilled and experienced research engineers design and build our scientific instruments and software at the highest international competetive level.

In the numerical work we run our advanced space plasma codes on Sweden's largest multiprocessor mainframes and clusters of computers and have been selected as one of few groups which will have access to the world's most powerful supercomputer which comes on line in early 2005. In 2004, we received, in fierce international competition, a grant from IBM which has allowed us to procure our own IBM JS20 supercomputer cluster.

Projects related to fundamental physics in space (contact person: Bo Thidé)

• Structure formation and dynamical/turbulent processes in space plasma, in particular processes associated with the Stimulated Electromagnetic Emission (SEE) phenomenon in the ionosphere, a new space plasma radiation mechanism discovered by us
• Generic electromagnetic wave-based physics in space, including modelling of space dynamics based on fundamental physical laws
• Full kinetic theory computer modelling and visualisation of electromagnetic turbulence and interactions in magnetised space plasma
• Identification of anthropogenic turbulence effects in the ionosphere and the magnetosphere due to electromagnetic radiation from ground-based radio and TV transmitters, including the artificial activation of aurorae
• Development of new techniques and facilities for advanced vector polarimetric and interferometric radio and radar studies of deep space, all the way out to the solar atmosphere. One important example is the innovative European LOFAR/LOIS research infrastructure (www.lofar.org; www.lois-space.net), the world's largest and most sensitive system for HF and VHF radio space physics and astrophysics

Projects related to satellite measurements (contact person: Kristof Stasiewicz)

• This group has been involved in development and carrying out the Swedish small satellite missions: Viking and Freja, and the latest ESA's four satellites Cluster mission. We were involved in development of satellite data analysis tool (ISDAT) and have designed and developed Orbit Visualisation Tool (OVT) used by several hundred scientists worldwide.
• New ongoing satellite projects include vector radio-spectrometers on the International Space Station (ISS), on Compas-2, a natural disaster warning satellite to be launched from a Typhoon submarine in collaboration with the Russian Space Research Institute, and the new NanoSpace-1 project financed by the Swedish National Space Board. Collaborative projects on US and Indian space missions are currently being negotiated.
• In international competition we won contract for Research Training Network financed by the European Community. The network has provided training for over 30 young researchers at pre-doctoral and post-doctoral level from several European countries. Ten young Swedish researchers have been financed and benefited from being a part of the network.
• We invite students interested in working with world's leading experts on the following topics:
  • Turbulent boundary layers in space
  • Auroral acceleration structures
  • Formation of nonlinear Alfvén waves and solitons in space plasma
  • Acceleration of electrons and ions by shocks
  • Novel spectral, wavelet-based analysis tools for satellite measurements

Scientists from the PHISP research programme act as teachers in the following courses given at Uppsala University

• Fluid Mechanics (undergraduate level)
• Antenna Engineering (undergraduate level)
• Plasma Physics (undergraduate level)
• Microsatellite Technology (undergraduate level)
• Electromagnetic Field Theory (intermediate undergraduate C-level)
• Classical Electrodynamics (advanced undergraduate D-level and doctoral level)
• Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics and Kinetic Theory (doctoral level)
• Wave Propagation (doctoral level)
• Modern Sensor Systems (doctoral level)