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.
Our group leader Dr. Mervi Mantsinen and PhD student Dani Gallart worked last week at the Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) at Garching, Germany. They participated in the experiments on the ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) tokamak as part of the EUROfusion 2018 Medium Size Tokamak (MST1) experimental campaign.
Mervi was the scientific coordinator of the experiments that successfully proved the use of waves tuned to the third harmonic ion cyclotron resonance of deuterium (D) to heat the plasma. Various diagnostics including neutron detectors and neutral particle analysers confirmed the presence of energetic D ions accelerated by resonant wave-particle interaction.
The Fusion Group at Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the National Fusion Laboratory at CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas) have actively collaborated for more than ten years. Over the recent years, the collaboration has focused on the modelling of plasma instabilities in the CIEMAT-based TJ-II stellarator device. It has recently resulted in a publication in the Nuclear Fusion journal and a related follow-up project on the modelling of energetic particle behaviour in TJ-II plasmas.
On 20 January, Barcelona Supercomputing Center held the 2018 Annual Meeting in the UPC Vèrtex building Auditori (auditorium). In this event, Mateo Valero, BSC director, and Josep Martorell, BSC associate director, reviewed the achievements reached in 2018 and the expected projects in the future.
Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) is developing a new simulation tool knwon as CHERAB for forward modelling diagnostics based on spectroscopic plasma emission.
CHERAB is being used by fusion scientists to simulate all sorts of visible and infrared plasma measuring tools, known as diagnostics. The diagnostic systems measure the light output of the plasma to study properties such as its temperature and density. Inferring these properties requires an accurate understanding of how the light is produced and bounces around inside the machine. The more accurately we can model these systems the more accurate our measurements of fusion plasmas will be.
This week, WPCD developers from all around EUROfusion countries have met at Innsbruck, Austria, in the last WPCD code camp of 2018. 37 participants have been working on various activities, all of them aligned towards the European integrated modelling efforts. Discussions have been carried out in the integration of codes within the IMAS (Integrated Modelling & Analysis Suite) ant ITM aiming to bring together codes from fusion research centers.