Vitaly Bychkov received his M.S. (1991) and Ph.D. (1994) in Physics and Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and a Philosophy Licentiate from Uppsala University, Sweden in 1993. He joined Umea University, Sweden as an Assistant Professor in 1996, and was promoted to Associate Professor (Lecturer) in 2000 and Full Professor in 2008.
Professor Bychkov conducts research in combustion, hydrodynamics, plasma, astrophysics and related areas (detailed description can be found here) as part of the Nonlinear Physics Group at Umea University. He has published 2 monographs and about 70 peer-reviewed articles as of 2009. The list of his papers is given here. The following is a representative list of the specific problems that he is currently interested in.
- Combustion
- Dynamics and stability of laminar flames
- Propagation of turbulent flames
- Flame-acoustic and flame-shock interaction
- Flame acceleration, explosion triggering, detonation
- Flame ignition, burning in engines
- Fluid Dynamics
- Rayleigh-Taylor instability and other hydrodynamic instabilities
- Bubble motion in fluids
- Rotational and irrotational flows
- Turbulence
- Flow in pipes
- Heat transfer and phase transitions
- Acoustics, shocks, explosions
- Plasma Physics
- Inertial confined fusion
- Magneto-hydrodynamics
- Plasma equilibrium
- Hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic instabilities in plasma
- Nonlinear effects in plasma
- Shocks in plasma
- Plasma surface waves
- Quantum plasma
- Nonlinear Physics
- Nonlinear oscillations and waves
- Weak nonlinearity and perturbation methods
- Wave interaction, shocks and solitons, bifurcations
- Front propagation, instabilities and nonlinear stabilization, fractals
- Astrophysics
- Supernova events
- Thermonuclear explosions
- White dwarfs
- Gravitational collapse
- The Collaboration
The collaboration was initiated upon the visit by Professor Bychkov to Princeton in March, 2009, with Dr. Slava Akkerman, who received his Ph.D. from Umea University and is presently a member of the Research Staff in our group, leading the collaboration, and with the participation of our students who are interested in the dynamics of flame propagation. At present, the collaboration is along two main directions:
- The phenomena of deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT), particularly in tubes
- Dynamics and stability of outwardly-expanding flame fronts including the Darrieus-Landau, diffusional-thermal and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, under either terrestrial or supernovae conditions
The collaboration has resulted in the following publications:
- “Analysis of flame acceleration induced by wall friction in open tubes,” by V. Akkerman, C.K. Law, V. Bychkov and L. E. Eriksson, submitted.
- “Flame acceleration in channels with obstacles in the deflagration-to-detonation transition,” by D. Valiev, V. Bychkov, V. Akkerman, L.E. Eriksson, and C.K. Law, Combustion and Flame, submitted.
- "The Role of Compressibility in Moderating Flame Acceleration in Tubes," by V. Bychkov, V. Akkerman, D. Valiev, and C. K. Law, Phys. Rev. E, submitted.