Scientific Challenges, Opportunities and Priorities for the U.S. Fusion Energy Sciences Program

Baker, C.C.; Prager, S. C.; Abdou, Mohamed; Berry, L. A.; Betti, R.; Chan, Vincent; Craig, D.S.; Dahlburg, J. P.; Davidson, Ronald C.; Drake, J. F.; Hawryluk, R. J.; Hill, D. N.; Hubbard, A.; Logan, G.; Marmar, E.; Mauel, M. E.; McCarthy, K.A.; Parker, Scott; Sauthoff, N.; Stambaugh, R.D.; Ulrickson, M.; Dam, James Van; Wurden, G. A.; Zarnstorff, M. C.; Zinkle, S.J.

doi:10.1007/s10894-005-6922-z

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“…The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) heliophysics roadmap [15] defines four basic research focus areas towards the major programmatic goal of space environmental prediction: understanding the multi-scale process of magnetic reconnection; understanding the plasma processes that accelerate and transport particles; understanding the ion-neutral interactions that couple neutral and ionized species; and, understanding the creation and variability of magnetic dynamos and the generation of magnetic fields in widely different environments. The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) "Scientific Challenges, Opportunities and Priorities of the US Fusion Energy Sciences Program" [16] define nearly identical key basic research campaign areas, under that program's overarching themes of understanding matter in the high temperature plasma state, and creating a star on Earth. The fusion energy sciences research planning campaigns include: macroscopic plasma physics, to understand the roles of magnetic structure on plasmas; multi-scale transport physics, to understand the physical processes that govern magnetic reconnection and energy dissipation, generate electromagnetic fields and possibly turbulent flows, and control the confinement of heat, momentum, and particles in plasmas; and, waves and energetic particles, towards understanding how electromagnetic waves and high-energy particles interact with and control high-temperature plasmas.…”

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confidence: 99%

Exploiting Laboratory and Heliophysics Plasma Synergies

et al. 2010

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Recent advances in space-based heliospheric observations, laboratory experimentation, and plasma simulation codes are creating an exciting new cross-disciplinary opportunity for understanding fast energy release and transport mechanisms in heliophysics and laboratory plasma dynamics, which had not been previously accessible. This article provides an overview of some new observational, experimental, and computational assets, and discusses current and near-term activities towards exploitation of synergies involving those assets. This overview does not claim to be comprehensive, but instead covers mainly activities closely associated with the authors' interests and reearch. Heliospheric observations reviewed include the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission, the first instrument to provide remote sensing imagery observations with spatial continuity extending from the Sun to the Earth, and the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on the Japanese Hinode spacecraft that is measuring spectroscopically OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2010, 3 1015 physical parameters of the solar atmosphere towards obtaining plasma temperatures, densities, and mass motions. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the upcoming Solar Orbiter with the Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) on-board will also be discussed. Laboratory plasma experiments surveyed include the line-tied magnetic reconnection experiments at University of Wisconsin (relevant to coronal heating magnetic flux tube observations and simulations), and a dynamo facility under construction there; the Space Plasma Simulation Chamber at the Naval Research Laboratory that currently produces plasmas scalable to ionospheric and magnetospheric conditions and in the future also will be suited to study the physics of the solar corona; the Versatile Toroidal Facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that provides direct experimental observation of reconnection dynamics; and the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment, which provides well-diagnosed data on three-dimensional (3D) null-point magnetic reconnection that is also applicable to solar active regions embedded in pre-existing coronal fields. New computer capabilities highlighted include: HYPERION, a fully compressible 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code with radiation transport and thermal conduction; ORBIT-RF, a 4D Monte-Carlo code for the study of wave interactions with fast ions embedded in background MHD plasmas; the 3D implicit multi-fluid MHD spectral element code, HiFi; and, the 3D Hall MHD code VooDoo. Research synergies for these new tools are primarily in the areas of magnetic reconnection, plasma charged particle acceleration, plasma wave propagation and turbulence in a diverging magnetic field, plasma atomic processes, and magnetic dynamo behavior.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploiting Laboratory and Heliophysics Plasma Synergies

et al. 2010

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Radiation Risk to Future Generations from Long-lived Radioactive Waste

Nusbaum

2006

J Community Health

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Global and local characterization of turbulent and chaotic structures in a dipole-confined plasma

2009

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Development of the megahertz planar laser-induced fluorescence diagnostic for plasma turbulence visualization Rev.When the neutral density increases sufficiently, plasma confined by a magnetic dipole field exhibits a transition to a high density, quasisteady state with complex turbulent behaviors. Experiments using the collisionless terrella experiment ͓B. Levitt, D. Maslovsky, and M. Mauel, Phys. Plasmas 9, 2507 ͑2002͔͒ used statistical tools and fast imaging to understand this turbulent state with respect to both global and local paradigms. Globally, the whole-plasma dynamics are observed using a unique high-speed imaging diagnostic that views the time-varying spatial structure of the polar current density. The biorthogonal decomposition for multiple space-time points is used to decompose the measured plasma dynamics into spatial and temporal mode functions. The dominant modes are long wavelength and radially broad with amplitudes and phases that are chaotic. The potential fluctuations are also found to be dominated by low azimuthal mode numbers. Locally, multipoint and multiple-time bispectral quantities are computed and used to estimate the linear dispersion and nonlinear structure coupling of a broadband of interacting fluctuations. The spectral power transfer is found to be from small to large scale in an inverse energy cascade. The energy spectrum displays a k −3 power law consistent with the enstrophy cascade in two-dimensional turbulence. In all cases, the fluctuations appear interchangelike and consistent with two-dimensional electrostatic interchange mixing. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time when both local and global dynamics of turbulent interchange structures have been simultaneously measured in a strongly magnetized plasma.

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Scientific Challenges, Opportunities and Priorities for the U.S. Fusion Energy Sciences Program

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

Exploiting Laboratory and Heliophysics Plasma Synergies

Exploiting Laboratory and Heliophysics Plasma Synergies

Radiation Risk to Future Generations from Long-lived Radioactive Waste

Global and local characterization of turbulent and chaotic structures in a dipole-confined plasma

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