Cyclotron radiation from energetic ion populations in nuclear fusion plasmas

by Dr Richard Dendy (Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, Warwick University, and Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, UK)

Friday 30 Nov 2018, 16:00 → 17:00 Asia/Shanghai

数理楼3304 (北京工业大学)

Abstract: The integrated international research programme pursuing energy from nuclear fusion is in a major expansion phase, with China playing a substantial role. Central to the physical challenge is sustaining fusion reactions between deuterium and tritium nuclei in the plasma state at very high temperatures > 100 million degrees. These reactions give rise to energetic alpha-particles, which must be confined in the plasma by magnetic forces. Measuring the properties of this alpha-particle population is difficult, but important. Fortunately the alpha-particles are found to interact collectively with each other, and with the background plasma, in such a way as to generate a very distinctive radio-frequency signal - ion cyclotron emission (ICE) - which is detected outside the plasma. Understanding the physical process underlying ICE therefore yields unique information on the character of the alpha-particle population. This talk will provide an account of progress since the discovery of ICE in the late 1980s, concluding with the interpretation of ICE from contemporary Japanese and Korean fusion experiments. Brief biography of speaker: Richard Dendy graduated in physics from Oxford University and, after completing Part III of the Mathematical Tripos at Cambridge University, returned to Oxford for a PhD in theoretical plasma physics supervised by the late Dirk ter Haar. His subsequent dual-track research career at Culham and Warwick, where he is a director of CFSA, has focused on plasma physics for nuclear fusion, and in space and astrophysics. Professor Dendy is the Chair of the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Division and is Editor-in-Chief of the leading journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. An annual prize for research collaboration between Europe and Asia in plasma physics was launched in his name this year. Talk duration: minimum 40 minutes, maximum 50