# Dominique Franck Escande

Dominique Franck Escande (born 1948) is a French physicist. He is known for his research in plasma physics, thermonuclear fusion by magnetic confinement, hybrid fusion-fission reactors, Hamiltonian dynamics, and deterministic chaos.

## Education and career

After graduating in physics in 1967 from the École polytechnique, Dominique Franck Escande became a graduate student in physics at Paris-Sud University. There he graduated in 1971 with a diplôme d'études approfondies [fr] (DEA) and a Ph.D. in 1978. His Ph.D. thesis in entitled Ondes haute fréquence dans un plasma en présence de fluctuation de basse fréquence (High-frequency waves in a plasma in the presence of low-frequency fluctuation). From 1981 to 1992 he was a CNRS researcher at the École polytechnique, where he held an appointment as maître de conferences (assistant professor) in physics. During the years of his appointment at the École polytechnique, he also worked at several other scientific institutions. For the academic year 1983–1984 he was on sabbatical at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Fusion Studies (IFS) (which, among other things, is the principal site for USA-Japan collaboration on theory in fusion research). From 1987 to 1992 he was a part-time consultant for X-Recherche Service. In 1988 for the CNRS research unit Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange, he created, in collaboration with Fabrice Doveil of the research team Equipe Turbulence Fluide et Plasma, the institute Physique des Interactions Ioniques et Moléculaires (PIIM). From 1988 to 1992 Escande also held an appointment as CNRS researcher at the University of Provence.
Escande was from 1992 to 1996 the head of the Département de Recherches sur la Fusion Contrôlée at EA-Cadarache, as well as the head of the Tore Supra French tokamak group. From 1995 to 1996 he chaired the Euratom Fusion Technology Steering Committee-Implementation. At Consorzio RFX [it] (Consortium RFX) in Padua, Italy, he was from 1996 to 1998 a full-time advisor and is since 1998 a part-time advisor. In 1998 he became a CNRS researcher at the University of Provence, where he now has emeritus status as Directeur de Recherché Emirate.
He contributed three book chapters. He is the co-author with Yves Elskens (a physics professor at the University of Provence) of the book Microscopic dynamics of plasmas and chaos (2003, IOP Publishing); with a 2019 paperback edition published by CRC Press.
Escande is author or co-author of many scientific articles related to the device called the reverse field pinch (RFP) and is an internationally recognized expert on RFPs. His former doctoral student Didier Bénisti has acquired an international reputation in fusion research and plasma physics.
In 1994 Escande was awarded the Prix Paul Langevin.

## Selected publications

* Escande, D.F.; Doveil, F. (1981). "Renormalization method for the onset of stochasticity in a hamiltonian system". Physics Letters A. 83 (7): 307–310. Bibcode:1981PhLA...83..307E. doi:10.1016/0375-9601(81)90144-4.
* Escande, D. F.; Doveil, F. (1981). "Renormalization method for computing the threshold of the large-scale stochastic instability in two degrees of freedom Hamiltonian systems". Journal of Statistical Physics. 26 (2): 257–284. Bibcode:1981JSP....26..257E. doi:10.1007/BF01013171. S2CID 120359199.
* Tennyson, J. L.; Cary, John R.; Escande, D. F. (1986). "Change of the Adiabatic Invariant due to Separatrix Crossing". Physical Review Letters. 56 (20): 2117–2120. Bibcode:1986PhRvL..56.2117T. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.56.2117. PMID 10032895.
* Escande, D.F. (1985). "Stochasticity in classical Hamiltonian systems: Universal aspects". Physics Reports. 121 (3–4): 165–261. Bibcode:1985PhR...121..165E. doi:10.1016/0370-1573(85)90019-5.
* Cary, John R.; Escande, D. F.; Tennyson, J. L. (1986). "Adiabatic-invariant change due to separatrix crossing". Physical Review A. 34 (5): 4256–4275. Bibcode:1986PhRvA..34.4256C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.34.4256. PMID 9897774.
* Elskens, Y.; Escande, D. F. (1991). "Slowly pulsating separatrices sweep homoclinic tangles where islands must be small: An extension of classical adiabatic theory". Nonlinearity. 4 (3): 615–667. Bibcode:1991Nonli...4..615E. doi:10.1088/0951-7715/4/3/002. S2CID 250743647.
* Elskens, Y.; Escande, D. F. (1991). "Slowly pulsating separatrices sweep homoclinic tangles where islands must be small: An extension of classical adiabatic theory". Nonlinearity. 4 (3): 615–667. Bibcode:1991Nonli...4..615E. doi:10.1088/0951-7715/4/3/002. S2CID 250743647.
* Antoni, Mickaël; Elskens, Yves; Escande, Dominique F. (April 1998). "Explicit reduction of N-body dynamics to self-consistent particle–wave interaction". Physics of Plasmas. 5 (4): 841–852. Bibcode:1998PhPl....5..841A. doi:10.1063/1.872651.
* Cary, John R.; Escande, D. F.; Verga, A. D. (December 1990). "Nonquasilinear diffusion far from the chaotic threshold". Physical Review Letters. 65 (25): 3132–3135. Bibcode:1990PhRvL..65.3132C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.65.3132. PMID 10042789.
* Antoni, Mickaël; Elskens, Yves; Escande, Dominique F. (April 1998). "Explicit reduction of N-body dynamics to self-consistent particle–wave interaction". Physics of Plasmas. 5 (4): 841–852. Bibcode:1998PhPl....5..841A. doi:10.1063/1.872651.
* Bénisti, D.; Escande, D. F. (June 1998). "Nonstandard Diffusion Properties of the Standard Map". Physical Review Letters. 80 (22): 4871–4874. Bibcode:1998PhRvL..80.4871B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.4871.
* Escande, D.F.; Ottaviani, M. (2004). "Simple and rigorous solution for the nonlinear tearing mode". Physics Letters A. 323 (3–4): 278–284. Bibcode:2004PhLA..323..278E. doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2004.02.010.
* Arcis, N.; Escande, D. F.; Ottaviani, M. (2007). "Saturation of a tearing mode in zero-β full magnetohydrodynamics". Physics of Plasmas. 14 (3): 032308. Bibcode:2007PhPl...14c2308A. doi:10.1063/1.2710799.
* Escande, D. F.; Sattin, F. (2007-11-02). "When Can the Fokker-Planck Equation Describe Anomalous or Chaotic Transport?". Physical Review Letters. 99 (18). American Physical Society (APS): 185005. arXiv:0705.3737. Bibcode:2007PhRvL..99r5005E. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.99.185005. ISSN 0031-9007. PMID 17995418. S2CID 13040660.
* Besse, Nicolas; Elskens, Yves; Escande, D. F.; Bertrand, Pierre (2011). "Validity of quasilinear theory: Refutations and new numerical confirmation" (PDF). Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 53 (2): 025012. Bibcode:2011PPCF...53b5012B. doi:10.1088/0741-3335/53/2/025012. S2CID 122380457.
* Escande, D. F. (2016). "Contributions of plasma physics to chaos and nonlinear dynamics". Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 58 (11): 113001. arXiv:1604.06305. Bibcode:2016PPCF...58k3001E. doi:10.1088/0741-3335/58/11/113001. S2CID 32994770.
* Escande, D. F.; Bénisti, D.; Elskens, Y.; Zarzoso, D.; Doveil, F. (2018). "Basic microscopic plasma physics from N-body mechanics". Reviews of Modern Plasma Physics. 2 (1): 9. arXiv:1805.11408. Bibcode:2018RvMPP...2....9E. doi:10.1007/s41614-018-0021-x. S2CID 257094851. 2018
* Escande, D. F.; Gondret, V.; Sattin, F. (2019). "Relevant heating of the quiet solar corona by Alfvén waves: A result of adiabaticity breakdown". Scientific Reports. 9 (1): 14274. Bibcode:2019NatSR...914274E. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-50820-x. PMC 6776755. PMID 31582798.