Biography
Dr. Suxing Hu is a Distinguished Scientist and Group Leader of the theoretical High-Energy-Density Physics (HEDP) Group at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester. He also holds joint appointments as Professor of Physics (Research) and Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Research) at University of Rochester. His group focuses on the fundamental understanding of material/plasma properties under extreme conditions such as warm dense matter encountered in inertial confinement fusion, planetary science, and astrophysics. Dr. Hu started theoretical studies on how intense laser pulses interact with atoms, molecules, and clusters in late-1990s. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics in 1998. He received the Distinguished Graduate Award from CAS in 1998 (only the top 20 out of 50,000 graduate students received this award annually). Dr. Hu was also awarded the Hundred Outstanding Doctorate Thesis Prize by China's Department of Education in 2000. After graduation, he received the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and continued theoretical AMO physics research at the University of Freiburg and Max Born Institute in Berlin, Germany. Having spent two years as a postdoc research associate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Dr. Hu became a Director's Postdoc Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2003. He joined LLE as a scientist in 2006 and became a Senior Scientist in 2013 and Distinguished Scientist in 2019. As a theoretical/computational physicist, he is interested in understanding how matter behaves under extreme conditions such as ultrahigh pressures [up to 100 peta-pascals (PPa)] and super-strong/ultrafast laser fields. He has published over 300 research articles in scientific journals that have received over ~15000 citations so far (h-index ~ 65). For his significant contribution to ultrafast (attosecond) and strong-field physics, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2013, by APS's Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (DAMOP).
Suxing Hu's Webpage @ PAS-Department
Research Overview
My current research focuses on the following four physics areas:
Theoretical/Computational High-Energy-Density Physics (HEDP): We are interested in the fundamental understanding of how matter behaves under extreme conditions (ρ=10−1 ~ 107 g/cm3 & T=103 ~1010 K) widely existing in both laboratories and the universe. We perform first-principles investigations on the equation-of-state (EOS), transport properties, opacity, and stopping-power of materials at such extreme conditions through state-of-the-art methods, e.g., density-functional theory (DFT) based quantum molecular dynamics (QMD), orbital-free molecular dynamics (OFMD), path integral Monte-Carlo (PIMC), and quantum Monte-Carlo (QMC) simulations. We are also exploring how Machine Learning and AI could help us understand HED physics better.
Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF): Implementing/Using accurate first-principles-based EOS, transport, opacity, and stopping-power models in radiation-hydrodynamics codes for reliable ICF simulations; designing/analyzing implosion experiments to understand and control Rayleigh–Taylor instability growth and thermal-nuclear burns in ICF targets through multidimensional radiation-hydrodynamics simulations. We are also interested in alternative ICF target designs with the ultimate goal of realizing fusion ignition in laboratories.
Computational physics: Developing time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) codes for ab-initio studies of high-energy-density physics and chemistry; Exploring new rezoning/regriding strategies in Lagrangian hydrodynamics; Developing advanced finite-element algorithms for quantum/classical simulations of many-body systems
Ultrafast Dynamics & Attosecond Physics: Understanding the ultrafast (from attosecond to femtosecond time-scales) ionization and radiation in intense/ultrafast laser interactions with atoms, molecules, clusters, solids and plasmas.
Full publication list can be found here