The Wendelstein 7-X stellarator designed, constructed and soon to be operated by the Max-Plank-Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald Germany is ready for operation. In the past couple of weeks the superconducting magnetic coils system of this first of its kind quasi-isodynamic optimized stellarator have been commissioned. Last week, mapping of the magnetic field structure with electron path of flight emission has shown that good magnetic flux surfaces are generated. Characteristic resonant surfaces in the magnetic structure have been identified and initial comparison to field line modeling has shown a good agreement with the predicted location of the flux surfaces. See recent press release for more information (http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3897638/07_15).
The device is now ready for operation and awaiting the operation license from the state government in Meckelnburg-Vorpommern. Congratulations to the entire W7-X team for this success. We are looking forward to work on this world-class facility.
We are involved within the IPP-U.S. collaboration and contribute with experimental and numerical analysis of plasma edge transport and neutral/impurity household in the edge plasma to the program. Below is a figure from EMC3-EIRENE modeling (courtesy of Florian Effenberg, 3rd year grad student) showing the radiation distribution of double ionized carbon in the helical scrape-off layer during the limiter startup phase. This work is funded by the Department of Energy under grant DE-SC0013911.
–News: 07-16-2015