Abstract

In magnetically confined fusion plasmas, the narrow edge boundary layer, called pedestal, interfaces a cold, recombining plasma and the hot fusion core. I will introduce the multifaceted interactions appearing in this outermost region of the ‘fusion core’: Multi-scale plasma instabilities and ionization sources from neutral gas. While the pedestal enables better fusion performance, the associated steep pressure gradients drive large-scale explosive instabilities (edge localized modes), which lead to intolerable heat and particle losses. I will show that benign micro-turbulent instabilities regulate pressure gradients below stability limits, providing a potential path towards pedestal control and optimization. To reliably predict the pedestal at reactor scale, my research focuses on disentangling the interactions of ionization source and micro-turbulent transport.

Biography

Florian Laggner is an experimental physicist at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) working on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego. He received his PhD degree from TU Wien, Vienna, Austria, studying the pedestal structure at ASDEX Upgrade. In 2017, Florian Laggner joined the Plasma Control group at Princeton University as a postdoctoral researcher and in 2019 he transitioned to a research scientist position at PPPL. Bio fact unrelated to science: Before grad school, Florian was pursuing a career as handball player, winning the Austrian championship in 2011.

Monday, May 2. 2022
4:00 pm seminar

Hybrid Option  (Speaker is in person)

zoom (link upon request)
or
Room 1202 Burlington Labs