Paper by Prof. O. Schmitz on comparative studies on Helium exhaust with RMP fields at TEXTOR (tokamak) and LHD (heliotron/stellarator) was selected as highlight for 2016 in the IoP journal Nuclear Fusion.

 highlight for 2016 in the IoP journal Nuclear Fusion

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The paper on “Enhancement of helium exhaust by resonant magnetic perturbation fields at LHD and TEXTOR” was selected as a 2016 highlight in the top-journal Nuclear Fusion. The paper demonstrates for the first time that small amplitude, resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) fields are a versatile and efficient fine-tuning actuator to control the helium exhaust from a magnetically confined plasma. Helium will be produced in future fusion reactors as ash of the fusion process and needs to be exhausted efficiently to maintain a burning plasma. In the paper it is shown that for the two leading configurations, i.e. a tokamak and stellarator plasma, helium exhaust can be controlled and substantially enhanced by these fine scale external magnetic fields. The study has motivated recent follow up experiments at the U.S. National Fusion facility DIII-D, in which such small scale magnetic fields are used for control of the plasma edge stability. The findings discussed in the paper suggest that enhanced helium exhaust is another beneficial aspect of these additional magnetic fields – a very important finding also for ITER, the next step fusion experiment presently under construction in southern France.

This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy under Early Career Grant DE-SC00013911.

— News: 03-15-2017