Transport and turbulence in confined toroidal plasmas

• Grant number: 24/03570-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Physics - Physics of Fluids, Plasma Physics and Electrical Discharge
• Principal Investigator: Iberê Luiz Caldas
• Grantee: Michele Mugnaine
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The efficiency of toroidal devices for plasma confinement, such as tokamaks and stellarators, is limited by turbulent processes and instabilities that can lead to magnetic field lines and charged particle escapes. To analyze the phenomena occurring during confinement, we can describe the systems using a Hamiltonian approach, reducing the problem to the study of symplectic maps. Different maps address various configurations of confinement devices. In this project, we aim to study three cases: a tokamak with an ergodic limiter and a non-monotonic safety factor profile, a tokamak with a limiter and a monotonic safety factor profile, and a stellarator with a non-resonant divertor. These three cases can be examined usingthe extended standard nontwist map, the Martin-Taylor map, and the stellarator map, respectively. By investigating transport in these maps, we can provide a dynamical characterization for the existing phenomenons and identify configurations that optimize confinement conditions.