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The Burning Issues:
U.S. Burning Plasma Organization e-News
May 10, 2006
from Ray Fonck, USBPO Director
CONTENTS:
1) USBPO TOPICAL GROUP LEADERS SELECTED
We are very happy to announce that the following members of the U.S. fusion research community have agreed to serve on the first as USBPO Topical Group Leaders:| Topical Group | Leader | Deputy Leader |
|---|---|---|
| MHD, Macroscopic Plasma Physics | Jon Menard (PPPL) | Chris Hegna (UW) |
| Confinement and Transport | Paul Terry (UW) | Ed Doyle (UCLA) |
| Boundary | Dennis Whyte (UW) | Tom Rognlien (LLNL) |
| Plasma-Wave Interactions | Cynthia Phillips (PPPL) | Steve Wukitch (MIT) |
| Energetic Particles | Raffi Nazikian (PPPL) | Bill Heidbrink (UCI) |
| Integrated Scenarios | Chuck Greenfield (GA) | Chuck Kessel (PPPL) |
| Fusion Engineering Science | Nermin Uckan (ORNL) | Richard Nygren (SNL) |
| Modeling and Simulation | Don Batchelor (ORNL) | Jon Kinsey (Lehigh) |
| Operational Scenarios and Control | Dave Humphreys (GA) | Dave Gates (PPPL) |
| Diagnostics | Rejean Boivin (GA) | Jim Terry (MIT), Steve Allen (LLNL) |
The Topical Group Leaders will help the community organize each group and provide initial leadership of the Topical Groups. The Topical Groups will help address several issues in the near-term, including, among other things:
- Define technical tasks to undertake in BP science and technology
- Execute those tasks or define procedures or recommend tasks groups to do so.
- Consider how to organize each area, and integrate BP interests within existing community activities
- Help as a community resource, as needed, for the upcoming FESAC study for Integrating U.S. and International Magnetic Fusion Research (see http://fire.pppl.gov/fesac_022806.htm)
- Help in identifying and executing ITER physics tasks
- Developing Burning Plasma Science and Technology presentations and literature
With the appointment of the Topical Group leadership, the USBPO will increasingly turn its attention to technical studies and activities in support of the burning plasma enterprise. We will keep you informed as each group moves into operation.
We wish to thank everyone in the community who helped us identify and recruit this excellent slate of leaders to get us going!
2) DIAGNOSTICS TOPICAL GROUP ACTIVITIES
The BPO Diagnostics Topical Group is holding satellite discussions at the High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics conference this week in Williamsburg, Virginia on May 8-11, 2006. Two presentations were planned to inform the community and gather inputs from participants.The first talk, given by Dave Johnson (PPPL) of USIPO, focuses on the status and plans of U.S. diagnostics from the USIPO perspective.
The second talk, given by USBPO Diagnostics Group Leader Rejean Boivin (GA), addresses the initial plans and ideas to organize the BPO-diagnostics Topical Group.
Both presentations will be posted on the BPO website at a later date - we will let you know the location on the website in the next e-News.
The Diagnostics Topical Group is initially coordinating community interaction with and support of the ITER Project Office diagnostics development efforts, and discussions of additional diagnostics needs expected for burning plasma experiments in ITER. To that end, the Group is planning on organizing their discussions around the following topics:
- Active Spectroscopy
- Imaging (Cameras)
- Microwaves (Reflectometry/ECE)
- IR and FIR diagnostics
They will be working with the community to define small working groups in each area. More soon...