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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
This talk will start with a brief status report on magnetic fusion energy research. One of the key challenges in fusion has been the occurrence of fine-scale turbulent fluctuations, which cause plasma to leak out of a magnetic trap, so we would like to be able to predict and reduce this turbulence. A major advance in this field has been the recent development of codes for comprehensive 5-D gyrokinetic simulations of microturbulence in the core region of fusion devices. These simulations have been made feasible by significant advances not only in raw computer power, but also in asymptotic simplification of the problem formulation, and in algorithmic development. Remaining challenges and some opportunities for contributions from applied and computational mathematics will be described.
Host: Jian-Zhou Zhu