Our PhD student Allah Rakha is back at BSC after successfully completing a six-month research stay at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), Germany. IPP is a leading institute in Europe for both theoretical and experimental studies of fusion plasmas, equipped with two state-of-the-art fusion experimental devices, the ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) tokamak and the world’s largest stellarator Wendelstein 7-X.
With this research stay, Allah Rakha fulfilled the mobility part of his Joint Erasmus Mundus PhD (FUSION-DC) program between the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC, Barcelona, Spain) and the Gent University (UGent, Belgium).
Stationed at IPP Garching near Munich, he worked on three-dimensional helical core magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium reconstructions for ASDEX Upgrade and studied the effect of the helical plasma core on shear Alfvén wave continuum spectrum. The research was carried out in close collaboration with Dr. Philipp Lauber (IPP) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jean-Marie Noterdaeme (IPP & UGent). Allah Rakha is grateful for their hospitality during his stay.
Allah Rakha would also like to acknowledge the funding he received from the Gent University, the Severo Ochoa mobility programme of BSC and the EUROfusion Education and Training Work Package for the stay.