June 2019
MSI Colloquium, Prof. Frank Jenko of Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics Garching
On the role of applied mathematics and computer science in fusion research Fusion energy holds the promise of providing electricity across the globe in a safe and environmentally friendly way for generations to come. This presupposes, however, that a number of very challenging scientific and technical issues are addressed. On the physics side, one needs to understand the behavior of ionized gases ("plasmas") at more than 100 million degrees in donut-shaped magnetic fields used for confinement. Given the enormous complexity…
Find out more »MSI Colloquium, Dr Stuart Hudson, Acting Head, Theory Department, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Can constructing “chaotic coordinates” help to understand transport in Non-Integrable Dynamical Systems? Authors: S. R. Hudson, R. L. Dewar, P. Helander The structure of the toroidal magnetic fields has a profound impact on transport in fusion energy plasmas. Understanding the nature of tangled and chaotic magnetic fields is hence of immense importance. It is also a formidable mathematical challenge. Magnetic field lines are trajectories of Hamiltonian systems, and in toroidally-symmetric geometries, such as a tokamak, the field can be described…
Find out more »