From June 24 to July 03, our research group participated in the CINECA Open Hackathon with the team BSCBIT, composed of Xavier Sáez, Eduardo Cabrera and Alejandro Soba.
The CINECA Open Hackathon was a virtual multi-day event co-organized by NVIDIA and the OpenACC organization. Launched in 2014, these hackathons are designed to help scientists and developers accelerate and optimise computational codes on GPUs with the support of expert mentors.
From June 30th to July 4th, Hernán Domingo attended the 14th International ITER School on Integrated Modelling in Magnetic Fusion Plasmas, held in Aix-en-Provence, France. The event, organized primarily by Aix-Marseille University, CEA and ITER Organization , brought together over 200 participants from diverse backgrounds, all sharing a common eagerness to learn more about nuclear fusion and integrated modelling.
Our PhD student, Hernán, had the opportunity to present a poster on Alya4fusion, our latest project focused on nuclear fusion reactor simulation and integrated modelling.
The 25th Topical Conference on Radio-Frequency Power in Plasmas took place from 19 to 22 May 2025 and attracted more than 130 participants. Our group leader, Mervi Mantsinen, delivered an invited talk at this conference reviewing key milestones from four decades of Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies (ICRF) physics on the Joint European Torus (JET), highlighting its significant contributions to fusion research and implications for future reactors.
JET, Europe’s leading tokamak device, has achieved exceptional performance surpassing its design specifications, operating with magnetic fields of up to 4 T, plasma currents of 7 MA, and auxiliary heating powers totalling 37 MW. Its versatile ICRF system, with a frequency range of 25–56 MHz, has enabled a wide array of heating and current drive experiments.
From May 12 to 16, the 2025 JOREK general meeting was held in Naples, Italy. Nicola Isernia and colleagues from the Federico II University of Naples organized the logistics for hosting the meeting. The meeting was held in the Federico II Congress Center, via Partenope, 36, just in front of the sea and below the wonderful lookout of Pizzofalcone and very close to the historical city center of Naples.
From our research group, Federico Cipolletta, participated in the event to share the work he performed in the JOREK code.
From May 6th to 8th, two members of our Fusion group, Pau Manyer and Hernán Domingo, participated in the 12th International BSC Severo Ochoa Doctoral Symposium 2025, presenting the latest progress and results of their ongoing projects. This event provides an opportunity for MSc and PhD students, as well as early postdoctoral scientists, to present their research projects in either oral or poster format. This edition saw more than 40 participants from a variety of backgrounds disseminate their research topics and achievements.
From April 7th through 10th, Fusion Group Researcher Ezequiel Goldberg participated in the Fusion Neutronics Meeting 2025: ITER and beyond, organised this year by the “Tecnologías de Fisión, Fusión y Fuentes de Irradiación” group (TECFIR) from UNED with the support of ITER and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The meeting venue was the Facultad de Educación building at the UNED campus in Madrid, Spain, and the event gathered experts from around the world to discuss recent advances and future directions in fusion neutronics.
On the event’s third day, Ezequiel presented the work “Neutron flux in IFMIF-DONES operation room: a comparison between Monte Carlo and deterministic codes.” The presentation focused on recent advancements in NEUTRO, the neutronics module of Alya, developed as part of the Alya4Fusion initiative. NEUTRO simulates neutron flux distribution and the resulting interactions with reactor materials, key to improving the accuracy and safety of fusion reactor designs.