Professor Dappen has researched in the Netherlands, France, the UK, and a half dozen other European countries. He accepts speaking engagements throughout the world to lecture on atomic physics and a solar model he developed. But don’t be intimidated: Werner Dappen teaches popular astronomy and physics courses to undergraduate students and earns wide praise for his good humor, contagious enthusiasm and ability to explain difficult concepts.
Research
Theoretical Stellar Plasma Physics
Werner Dappen is a theorist who aims at using the Sun as a plasma physics laboratory. To pursue this goal, he participates on the one hand in state-of-the art solar modeling and the analysis of helioseismic data. On the other hand, helioseismology is the first accurate “experiment” that puts strong constraints on the thermodynamic quantities of the plasma of stellar interiors. Dappen has ongoing collaborations, supported by his NSF grant, with the leading groups that model the statistical mechanics of reacting Coulomb systems (Livermore, Lyon, Rostock/Greifswald). Dappen’s own contribution to the field (the Mihalas-Hummer-Dappen equation of state) is currently being used by several international solar and stellar modeling groups.
