Plasma Physics
We present a novel method for numerically finding quasi-isodynamic stellarator magnetic fields with excellent fast-particle confinement and extremely small neoclassical transport. The method works particularly well in configurations with…
Magnetic reconnection is an important source of energetic particles in systems ranging from astrophysics to the laboratory. The large separation of spatiotemporal scales involved makes it critical to determine the minimum physical model…
Electrostatic waves play a critical role in nearly every branch of plasma physics from fusion to advanced accelerators, to astro, solar, and ionospheric physics. The properties of planar electrostatic waves are fully determined by the…
Free energy, widely used as a measure of turbulence intensity in weakly collisional plasmas, has been recently found to be a suitable basis to describe both linear and nonlinear growth in a wide class gyrokinetic systems. The simplicity…
We investigate the local proton energization at magnetic discontinuities/intermittent structures and the corresponding kinetic signatures in velocity phase space in Alfv\'enic and non-Alfv\'enic wind streams observed by Parker Solar Probe.…
This paper presents the calculation of the bounce-averaged drift of trapped particles in a near-axis framework for axisymmetric and quasisymmetric magnetic fields that possess up-down and stellarator symmetry respectively. This analytic…
When a particle crosses a region of space where the curvature radius of the magnetic field line shrinks below its gyroradius $r_{\rm g}$, it experiences a non-adiabatic (magnetic moment violating) change in pitch angle. The present paper…
Neutral beam current drive (NBCD) on the EAST tokamak is studied by using Monte-Carlo test particle code TGCO. Phase-space structure of the steady-state fast ion distribution is examined and visualized. We find that trapped ions carry…
Based on the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission we look at magnetic field fluctuations in the Earth's magnetosheath. We apply the statistical analysis using a Fokker-Planck equation to investigate processes responsible for stochastic…
The effects of the electron inertia on the current sheets that are formed out of kinetic turbulence are relevant to understand the importance of coherent structures in turbulence and the nature of turbulence at the dissipation scales. We…
The Hosking integral, which characterizes magnetic helicity fluctuations in subvolumes, is known to govern the decay of magnetically dominated turbulence. Here we show that, when the evolution of the magnetic field is controlled by the…
We for the first time observe that at the initial stage of a high-current discharge, a low-divergence short (< 2 ns) electromagnetic pulse is formed over a ferrite surface. The 50% part of this pulse lies in the region of fairly hard x-ray…
The plasma edge of a tokamak configuration is characterized by turbulent dynamics leading to enhanced transport. We construct a simplified 3D Hasegawa--Wakatani model reducing to a single partial differential equation for the turbulent…
It is known that a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation describes the self-modulation of a large amplitude circularly polarized wave in relativistic electron-positron plasmas in the weakly and strongly magnetized limits. Here, we show that such…
Zonal flows are known to diminish turbulent transport in magnetic fusion. Interstingly, there is an adiabatic invariant that implies the emergence of zonal flow. The paper shows that if this invariant is decreasing (due to some external…
Magnetic field generation in ultra-intense laser-solid interactions is studied over a range of laser intensities relevant to next-generation laser facilities ($a_0 = 50-500$) using 2D particle-in-cell simulations. It is found that fields on…
We present in this part II the effects of the magnetic field intensity on the properties of the plasma discharge and the underlying phenomena for different propellant's ion mass. The plasma setup represents a perpendicular configuration of…
We present, in this two-part article, an extensive study on the influence that the magnitudes of the applied electric (E) and magnetic (B) fields have on a collisionless plasma discharge of xenon, krypton, and argon in a 2D radial-azimuthal…
A new Doppler backscattering (DBS) system, consisting of Q-band and V-band, has been installed and achieved its first data on the MAST-U spherical tokamak. The Q-band and V-band have separate microwave source systems, but share the same…
Significant progress has been made in designing magnetic fields that provide excellent confinement of the guiding enter trajectories of alpha particles using quasisymmetry (QS). Given the reduction in this transport channel, we assess the…