Our new journal paper in Nuclear Fusion on modeling of frequency-sweeping Alfvén modes

Alfvénic instabilities driven by energetic particles pose a challenge to the efficient operation of magnetic confinement fusion devices. These modes can dispel fast ions leading to the introduction of significant heat loads onto plasma facing components and degradation of overall plasma confinement. One class of Alfvénic instabilities known as reversed shear Alfvén eigenmodes (RSAEs) are of particular risk in devices with reversed shear rotational transform profiles. Reversed shear configurations have recently been of interest because of their enhancement to confinement quality. With this in mind, further study of RSAEs is necessary.

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JOREK code meeting at EPFL with a visit to Swiss Plasma Center

Group picture of in-person attendees at the EPFL site

From 12/02/2024 to 16/02/2024, the 2024 JOREK code meeting was held at EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, organized with the support of Cristian Sommariva and Mengdi Kong from the Swiss Plasma Center (SPC), adopting a hybrid format. The meeting was greatly appreciated by the large community of code users and developers, with over 60 registered people, of which 30 were in-person.

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Two new Master students have joined our group

The year 2024 has started with the opportunity for two new Master students to carry out their MSc thesis research projects in our Fusion group. Their internships will last between six and eight months during which they will be able to have a first-hand experience with one of the most powerful supercomputers worldwide, the MareNostrum 5, in a hot timely topic such as nuclear fusion.

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AORSA 3D: new insight on ICRH in stellarators

Representation of last closed magnetic flux surfaces in a stellarator.

The tridimensional All-ORder Spectral Algorithm (AORSA-3D) has been adapted to run on the supercomputer MareNostrum, at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS). AORSA-3D is designed to study the plasma-wave interaction inside the 3D volume of a stellarator. Its model provides fully three-dimensional solutions of the integral wave equation for Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ICRH) in three-dimensional stellarator plasmas. Its algorithm is based on combining multiple periodic solutions for individual helical field periods in order to obtain complete 3-D wave solutions valid over the entire volume of the stellarator for an arbitrary antenna geometry.

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