Plasma Turbulence at the Edge of Fusion Reactors
ABSTRACT :
Edge? Why not core? First of all, why should we care at all about nuclear fusion? Once we more-or-less agree on its necessity, I will touch upon the current status of nuclear fusion research worldwide.
And then, will outline the underlying physics model of a nuclear fusion reactor, called Tokamak. Here, we will perturb a set of nested 2-tori with two action and two angle variables (an integrable system), destroy the last remaining KAM surface, and (re)visit the fuzzy separatrix (/homoclinic-tangle), adiabatically. This will precisely lead us to the most delicate part of a nuclear fusion reactor - the Edge.
Optimizing plasma turbulence at this Edge of a Tokamak, is the sweet-spot to build a commercially viable nuclear fusion reactor. I will focus on our work - how a group of theoretical and computational physicists, in Princeton, are heading to find quantitative solution for this real-life problem!