Mission Statement Graduate Student Information Contact Information MURI-2001 University of Maryland Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics
Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics

A joint Institute of the
College of Computer, Mathematical and
Physical Sciences
and the A. James Clark School of Engineering

IREAP Graduate Student Seminar

Friday, February 1, 2008 -- 12:00 p.m.
Large Conference Room (1207), Energy Research Facility

"Non-diffusive fast ion transport in stochastic plasma structures"
by
Kyle Gustafson
Advisor: Dr. Bill Dorland

Turbulent plasmas are found in nature and the laboratory: examples include solar wind and fusion confinement. For fusion devices, the transport of particles and heat in a turbulent plasma state is relevant for creating an efficient fusion plasma. To achieve fusion ignition, it is necessary to minimize outward flux and keep energy at the center of a hot plasma. ITER, the next big step for the international magnetic confinement fusion program, has been designed based on estimates of transport that assume standarddiffusion by Brownian motion. By contrast, we are interested in examples of transport where the motion is non-diffusive, defined such that the variance of particle displacements does not scale linearly with time. In our simplified model of a quasi-two dimensional plasma, results from simulations of passive particles representing fast ions in a stochastic velocity field reveal non-diffusive transport dependent on temperature. These results suggest that a fractional diffusion equation gives a better description of certain types of plasma transport compared to the standard diffusion equation.