Our four recent journal publications on JET results in Nuclear Fusion

Sample Nuclear Fusion journal.

Two members of our fusion group, Mervi Mantsinen and Dani Gallart, have collaborated in four recent peer-reviewed journal papers that has been recently published in Nuclear Fusion.

Nuclear Fusion is the acknowledged world-leading journal specializing in fusion. The journal covers all aspects of research, theoretical and practical, relevant to controlled thermonuclear fusion, and enjoys a high impact factor of 3.516 (2018).

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Collaborating with CIEMAT and Aalto University on modelling of fast ions in TJ-II stellarator

Sadig Mulas (left) and Joona Kontula (right) at MareNostrum4.

From 22 July to 2 August, we enjoyed the visits of two PhD students, Sadig Mulas and Joona Kontula from CIEMAT and Aalto University, respectively, to our group. Sadig and Joona came to work with us within the collaboration between the three institutions (CIEMAT – Aalto University – BSC) on numerical modelling of fast ions in the TJ-II stellarator. The TJ-II stellarator is an experimental fusion device is located at the CIEMAT headquarters in Madrid, Spain, which uses fast ions injected by neutral beam injection to heat the plasma.

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Experiments in full swing on Joint European Torus

Control room experimental team following attentively the various displays showing measured key quantities in real time during one of the M18-05 experimental discharges carried out last Thursday.

The EUROfusion experimental campaign at the Joint European Torus (JET) located at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE), UK is in full swing.

Last week our group leader Mervi Mantsinen and our La Caixa-funded PhD student Dani Gallart visited JET to participate in this campaign. Our focus was in on-site preparation, execution and first analysis of two sessions of the experiment M18-05 “ICRH scenario support in D and T plasmas” for which Mervi is one of the two scientific coordinators. This means that she is in charge of the scientific planning of this experiment and the coordination of its international team of approximately 45 scientists from various institutions all over Europe.

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High temperature superconductivity beats the record high DC magnetic field ever reached

This ‘little big coil’, the size of a half-pint, allowed achieving the highest direct-current magnetic field of 45.5 T. From MagLab website.

The third coil in a series of High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) coils known as ‘little big coils’ (LBC) has enabled the highest direct-current magnetic field to date at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab), United States. This last coil which barely weighs 400 grams generated a field of 14.4 T while able to retain the superconducting state in a background field of 31.1 T created by a resistive magnet, thus reaching the highest field ever registered of 45.5 T.

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Thrilled by PlasmaSurf Summer School

Following the yearly tradition established over the past seven years, the Portuguese Institute of Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion (IPFN), located in Lisbon, Portugal, organized the PlasmaSurf 2019 summer school in plasma physics, intense lasers and nuclear fusion from the 14th to the 21st of July. This year two members of our group, Jordi Manyer and Ignacio López de Arbina, were among the lucky applicants accepted to attend the school. Jordi’s participation was further sponsored by FuseNet, which we gratefully acknowledge.

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Physics and plasma at the Biennial of Spanish Royal Society of Physics

Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar viewed from the Ebre river in Zaragoza.

The XXXVII Biennial Meeting of the Spanish Royal Society of Physics (RSEF) was held last week (15th-19th July) in Zaragoza (Spain). The conference attracted more than 500 physicists working in a broad variety of disciplines, giving an overview to many research topics and research carried out in Spain in physics.

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