Dr. Mostafa El Alaoui

Science

Dr. El-Alaoui received his Ph.D. degree in 1994 at the Centre d`Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements in Toulouse, France. His Ph.D. thesis, under the guidance of Doctor Jean Michel Bosqued, was on observations in the auroral region by the AUREOL-3 spacecraft. He came to UCLA in 1994 in a post-doctoral position and is now on the research staff in the Physics and Astronomy Department. He has been conducting research using global magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, implicit particle-in-cell simulations, and a large scale particle tracing technique, called large scale kinetics (LSK), that he extended to the case of time-dependent fields. An important part of each of the space physics research problems he has worked on has been using satellite data as both the initiator and verifier of the theory and simulations. The main topics of his research during recent years have been substorm development, plasma sheet turbulence during northward and southward IMF, electron energization in the near-Earth magnetotail during dipolarization event, the entry of solar energetic particles during storm times, and the access of low energy ions and ionospheric O+ ions to the inner plasma sheet during storm times. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union.

Education

Ph.D/Physics, Centre d`Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France, 1994
B.S. Solid State Physics, Mohammed I University, Oujda, Morocco

CCMC Responsibilities

Magnetosphere Models

Research Interests

My research focuses on magnetospheric physics. I use models and simulations to address outstanding magnetospheric physics problem. The techniques include:

Global MHD simulations.
Particle-in-cell simulations
Large scale kinetic simulations involving the tracing millions of particles in the MHD models

Recent science topics include:

Plasma sheet turbulence
The physics of magnetotail magnetic reconnection
The origin and dynamics of the ring current
Particle energization in the near-Earth magnetotail during dipolarization events