Vassilis Angelopoulos

About

Vassilis Angelopoulos is a Professor and Vice Chair for Teaching at the UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences. His role involves academic leadership and teaching within the department. He is associated with the Experimental Space Physics Group, indicating a focus on space physics research. His contact information includes a phone number (310-794-7090) and email (vassilis@g.ucla.edu). The department is located at UCLA, 595 Charles Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567. The webpage highlights his involvement in research areas related to space physics and his contribution to the academic community at UCLA.

Research topics

• Physics
• Astronomy
• Atmospheric sciences
• Mathematics
• Geometry
• Statistical physics
• Nuclear physics
• Mathematical analysis
• Classical mechanics
• Optics

Selected publications

• Magnetotail reconnection onset caused by electron kinetics with a strong external driver

  Nature Communications · 2020 · 119 citations

  Magnetotail reconnection plays a crucial role in explosive energy conversion in geospace. Because of the lack of in-situ spacecraft observations, the onset mechanism of magnetotail reconnection, however, has been controversial for decades. The key question is whether magnetotail reconnection is externally driven to occur first on electron scales or spontaneously arising from an unstable configuration on ion scales. Here, we show, using spacecraft observations and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulatio…

  DOI

• Near-Earth magnetotail reconnection powers space storms

  Nature Physics · 2020 · 88 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  DOI

• Statistical Characteristics of the Proton Isotropy Boundary

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2024 · 2 citations

  Using particle data from the ELFIN satellites, we present a statistical study of 284 proton isotropy boundary events on the nightside magnetosphere, characterizing their occurrence and distribution in local time, latitude (L-shell), energy, and precipitating energy flux, as a function of geomagnetic activity. For a given charged particle species and energy, its isotropy boundary (IB) is the magnetic latitude poleward of which persistently isotropic pitch-angle distributions ($J_{prec}/J_{perp}\s…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• On Energetic Electron Precipitation in Auroral Arcs

  Geophysical Research Letters · 2025-09-18 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract A key element of magnetosphere‐ionosphere coupling is the precipitation of electrons, which transfers energy from the collisionless, rarefied magnetospheric plasma into the dense, collisional ionosphere. Two distinct types of such precipitation are: auroral electrons, which carry field‐aligned currents and are responsible for auroral arc formation, and energetic electrons, which contribute to ionization in the lower ionosphere. Although these two electron populations are well separated…

  PublisherDOI

• Charged Particle Cross-Field Transport due to Geometric Jumps of Adiabatic Invariant

  Physical Review Letters · 2025-08-08 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  We examine energetic electron transport in Earth's outer radiation belt, presenting a mechanism for rapid (nondiffusive) radial transport. This process relies on electron crossings of an asymmetric separatrix in slow-fast Hamiltonian system, occurring in Earth's dayside magnetosphere due to interactions with the interplanetary magnetic field. The resulting asymmetry quickly destroys adiabatic invariant through geometric jumps, driving exponential phase-space mixing and enhancing radial transport…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Causes and Consequences of Relativistic Electron Precipitation as Revealed by the CubeSat Mission ELFIN’s Pitch-Angle Resolved Loss Cone Measurements

  NSF · $388k · 2020–2024

• CubeSat: Electron Losses and Fields INvestigation (ELFIN)

  NSF · $651k · 2014–2019

Frequent coauthors

• A. V. Artemyev

  University of California, Los Angeles

  903 shared

• X.‐J. Zhang

  Inner Mongolia Agricultural University

  529 shared

• A. Runov

  Planetary Science Institute

  467 shared

• Y. Nishimura

  Boston University

  297 shared

• C. T. Russell

  284 shared

• D. Mourenas

  271 shared

• E. Donovan

  University of Calgary

  240 shared

• H. J. Singer

  NOAA Weather Prediction Center

  230 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Earth and Space Sciences

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1990

• M.S., Earth and Space Sciences

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1986

• B.S., Physics

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1983

Similar researchers at University of California, Los Angeles

• David Jewitth-76
• Craig Manningh-75
• Edward Youngh-72