Using an advanced plasma global code called XGCa, researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have confronted the conventional view of the so-called bootstrap current with results clarifying the origin of the current at the tokamak edge.
A hearing on Fusion Energy Science took place on 20th April 2016 in the house of representatives in United States.
The Director-General of the ITER, Bernard Bigot, the Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Stewart Prager, and a Physics Division scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Scott Hsu, were present in the event in order to discuss the challenges and prospects of fusion research.
Last week, on 13 April 2016, our Fusion group member Shimpei Futatani visited the INRIA Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France, to participate the 2nd JOREK General Meeting.
Shimpei presented his recent work of the ELM triggering by a pellet in ASDEX Upgrade plasma. The visit was not only for the presentation, but also for the useful discussions with the fusion scientists and the mathematicians from all around Europe who work on the JOREK code.
The 3rd BSC International Doctoral Symposium organized by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center will be held on the 4th, 5th and 6th of May. This event is mainly focused on PhD and Postdoc students who are given an opportunity to show their research work and share their ideas with a broad audience.
Divided in poster sessions and talks, the event promotes the communication between the participants, who normally have different backgrounds, facilitating the interest and learning of other research topics.
CIEMAT TJ-II at Madrid, Spain, is the 2nd largest facility for 3D fusion research after W7-X within Europe.
PhD student Allah Rakha from our fusion group visited the TJ-II for one week (April 4-8, 2016) in order to participate with theory group for the modelling of 3D physics of Alfvenic activity in the flexible Heliac TJ-II. This trip was the part of his PhD studies to learn 3D codes for the modelling of TJ-II data.
Power Technology has published an interesting article on fusion research, given the first promising results from the new Wendelstein 7-X stellarator device at the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics.
Wendelstein 7-X produced its first hydrogen plasma in February 2016, sparking speculation that the stellarator could overtake the tokamak as the leading experimental form of nuclear fusion energy production.