Prof. Cairns's primary interests are in the theory, simulation, and observation of plasma waves, radio emissions, shocks, and associated space weather produced in the solar atmosphere, inner solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, the distant heliosphere, and the local interstellar medium. His most important contributions are:
Burstiness: he has demonstrated that the near-universal spatio-temporal burstiness of waves and radiation is usually a signature of the physics and plasma inhomogeneity, developed large parts of stochastic growth theory (SGT) and demonstrated its applicability in over 10 systems, investigated nonlinear self-focusing (modulational) instabilities, and co-discovered localized Langmuir eigenstates in space.
Radio emissions: he has developed the first micro- to macro-scale theories for the solar system's most powerful radio emissions, type II and III solar radio bursts and 2-3 kHz radiation from the outer heliosphere.
These combine his analytic/numerical theories for the microphysics of electron beams, wave growth, linear mode conversion, and nonlinear processes and integrate them over multiple regions of a macroscopic extended source.
As well as these interests, Prof. Cairns is also taking major leadership roles in two University of Sydney spacecraft projects, i-INSPIRE and a subsequent cubesat as part of the European-lead QB50 project. He is also the current leader of the Solar, Heliospheric, and Ionospheric (SHI) Group of the Australia Ð US Ð India Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) of radiotelescopes, currently being built in Western Australia. He is also a member of the team for NASA's CAPER rocket and ESA's Solar Orbiter.
