Status of Issues in U.S. Edge-Plasma Research and Priority Topics for the Next Five Years

Technical Report · Wed Mar 16 00:00:00 EST 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/15015169· OSTI ID:15015169

Bateman, G; Chang, C; Fenstermacher, M; Guzdar, P; Hahm, T S; Krasheninnikov, S; Kritz, A; Rognlien, T D; Schnack, D; Schultz, D; Snyder, P; Stotler, D; Terry, J; Ulrickson, M; Bolton, C

The Edge Coordinating Committee (ECC) was formed in July 14-15, 2004 when OFES Theory Team invited 14 plasma researchers to a two-day meeting in Germantown, MD to discuss the state of edge-plasma research in the U.S. with a focus on theory and modeling (see http://www.mfescience.org/ecc/ ecc/). At that time, OFES tasked the ECC with providing, in about a six month period, a report on the present status of key issues in this area together with a roadmap of what range of activities should be undertaken in the next five years to resolve these issues. This document is a response to that charge. Future edge-plasma research described here is assumed to fit into a budget constraint of a ''flat budget,'' with some additional activities cited for budget increases of as much as 50%. To obtain some measure of the relative fraction of OFES Theory funding presently devoted to edge plasma research, the OFES Theory Team informally surveyed funded work they support in this area at National Labs, Universities, and industry. John Mandrekas reported to us that approximately 10% of the present budget goes to edge-physics areas at 10 institutions, for a total of {approx}$2.5M each year. While not explicitly estimated, we note that there are also important edge plasma projects in the Plasma Technology program, especially related to plasma/material sputtering interactions, near-surface plasma chemistry and transport, and impurity transport. Likewise, the Confinement Program has important efforts in interpreting edge-plasma data through modeling codes. This initial status/roadmap work of the ECC is complimentary to the Fusion Energy Science Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) Panel on Program Priorities (see http://www.mfescience.org/fesac/ fesac/). This Panel is charged with identifying major science and technology issues for all of controlled fusion and also with recommending campaigns to address these issues. The Panel has organized their report along six thematic areas, one of which, termed Plasma Boundary Interfaces, coincides directly with the interests of the ECC. Many of the ECC members have provided input to the FESAC Panel in the edge-plasma area, and an ECC member is on the Panel. The ECC is providing a more detailed examination of edge-plasma issues than is possible in the broad Panel charge and will also work to facilitate ongoing edge-plasma activities beyond the active term on the Panel. While the emphasis of the ECC is initially on theory and model development, there is a strong recognition that comparison and coordination with experiments and experimentalists are essential for meaningful progress; to this end, two members of the ECC are from the experimental community. To gather data for the ECC task of a detailed summary and roadmap, edge-community input has been solicited at two meetings, the first being a workshop at General Atomics on Sept. 27-28, 2004, and the second a community meeting on Nov. 14, 2004 at the APS APS-DPP conference in Savannah, GA. Details of these meetings, topical summaries written by ECC members, and other information on the work of this committee can be found at the ECC website. A consolidation of this material forms the basis of this report. The focus here is on tokamak devices with magnetically diverted scrape-off off-layer (SOL) separating closed and open magnetic field lines. However, there is substantial interest and work on 3D effects that thus begins the expansion of models and tools to include devices with intrinsic 3D variations such as stellarators.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: US Department of Energy (US)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 15015169
• Report Number(s): UCRL-TR-210698; TRN: US0501645
• Resource Relation: Other Information: PBD: 16 Mar 2005
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL PROTECTION
ADVISORY COMMITTEES
CHEMISTRY
CONFINEMENT
MAGNETIC FIELDS
PLASMA
SIMULATION
SPUTTERING
STELLARATORS
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TOKAMAK DEVICES
TRANSPORT