The Landau-Spitzer Award on the Physics of Plasmas
The Landau-Spitzer Award on the Physics of Plasmas for “Outstanding contributions to plasma physics” is jointly sponsored by the Plasma Physics Divisions of the American Physical Society and the European Physical Society.
The Award is given to an individual or group of researchers for outstanding theoretical, experimental or technical contribution(s) in plasma physics and for advancing the collaboration and unity between Europe and the USA by joint research or research that advances knowledge which benefits the two communities in a unique way. The award may be given to a team or collaboration of up to four persons affiliated with either the European or US institutions.
The Call for Nominations for the 2026 Landau-Spitzer Award will appear here in due course. The Prize & Award Nomination Guidelines can be found on this APS webpage.
Previous prize winners
| Year | Winner(s) |
| 2024 | Anna Grassi (Sorbonne University, France), Frederico Fiuza (Instituto Superior Tecnico, Portugal), George F. Swadling (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA) and Hye-Sook Park (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA) for “the critical advancement in the understanding of the particle acceleration physics in astrophysically-relevant shocks through theoretical analysis and experiments at the National Ignition Facility” |
| 2022 | Christopher Chen (Queen Mary University London, UK), Gregory Howes (University of Iowa, USA) and Kristopher Klein (University of Arizona, USA) for “the theoretical development of the field-particle correlation technique and its application to spacecraft measurements directly showing that electron Landau damping plays a role in the dissipation of space plasma turbulence” |
| 2020 | Riccardo Betti (LLE, Univ. Rochester, USA), Alexis Casner (CELIA, France), Xavier Ribeyre (CELIA, France) and Wolfgang Theobald (LLE, Univ. Rochester, USA) for “major advancements of the shock ignition concept through collaborative experimental and simulation efforts in inertial confinement fusion research” |
| 2018 | Yevgen Kazakov (LPP-ERM/KMS, Belgium), Jozef Ongena (LPP-ERM/KMS, Belgium), John C. Wright (MIT PSFC, USA) and Stephen J. Wukitch (MIT PSFC, USA) for “experimental verification, through collaborative experiments, of a novel and highly efficient ion cyclotron resonance heating scenario for plasma heating and generation of energetic ions in magnetic fusion devices” |
| 2016 | John Berkery (Columbia University, USA), Steven Sabbagh (Columbia University, USA), Yueqiang Liu (CCFE, UK) and Holger Reimerdes (EPFL, Switzerland) for their “seminal joint research providing key understanding and quantitative verification of global mode stability in experimental high performance tokamak plasmas, based on drift-kinetic MHD theory, and made possible by strong and essential partnership between Europe and the USA” |
| 2014 | Manuel Garcia-Munoz (University of Seville, Spain), Benedikt Geiger (IPP, Germany), David C. Pace and Michael A. Van Zeeland (GA, USA) for the “greater understanding of energetic particle transport in tokamaks through collaborative research” |
| 2012 | Sergey I. Anisimov (Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Russia) for outstanding contributions to plasma physics ranging from fundamental plasma theory to laboratory plasmas, controlled inertial fusion and astrophysical phenomena, particularly in the areas of laser interaction with plasma, plasma dynamics and stability, compressed matter and turbulence |