Understanding and modelling kinetic turbulence in magnetized plasmas

等离子体物理是英国磁聚变研究计划的核心，是EPSRC能源主题的重要支柱。通过磁约束聚变发电是一项有前途的努力：旨在提供一种丰富、廉价、清洁、安全和可靠的能源，以支持经济繁荣，同时提供一种可行的化石燃料替代品，作为应对全球环境挑战的一种方式。磁约束聚变利用强磁场将聚变等离子体燃料限制在一系列嵌套的环形磁表面中，这种装置被称为托卡马克。等离子体中的湍流是实现这一目标的关键障碍，因为已知湍流混合会增强粒子和热量在磁性表面上的传输，导致最终失去停止聚变反应的等离子体约束。了解等离子体湍流中的适当相互作用，发生在物理尺度上的相互作用仅由六维相空间中的动力学理论捕获，允许正确实施湍流模型。这些模型可以用于托卡马克输运研究，这反过来又可以确定当前机器的最有效的操作制度，并直接影响未来托卡马克反应堆的设计。由于在动力学水平的等离子体湍流是知之甚少，这一天，而足够的动力学湍流模型还有待开发，我们转向空间等离子体配置提供更简单的环境隔离基本湍流动力学。该项目将从动力学角度处理等离子体湍流，解决太阳风学术界追求的基本问题，如确定用于消散小尺度湍流能量的动力学路线，同时，以新的基于知识的湍流模式的形式，开发出实用的解决方案，这些方案将直接有助于核聚变研究这项工作将联合来自国家（卡勒姆聚变能中心）和国际（德国马克斯-普朗克等离子体物理研究所和美国洛杉矶加州大学）机构的合作者，同时由考文垂大学的研究人员领导。

Plasma physics is at the core of the UK Magnetic Fusion Research Program, an important pillar of the EPSRC's Energy theme. The generation of electrical power via magnetic confinement fusion represents a promising endeavour: aiming to provide an abundant, inexpensive, clean, safe and reliable source of energy that can support a thriving economy, while at the same time offering a viable alternative to fossil fuels as a way to tackle global environmental challenges. Magnetic confinement fusion makes use of strong magnetic fields to confine the fusion plasma fuel in a series of nested torus shaped magnetic surfaces, in a device known as a tokamak. Turbulence in plasma represents a key impediment to this objective, as turbulent mixing is known to enhance the transport of particles and heat across magnetic surfaces, leading to the eventual loss of plasma confinement that stops the fusion reaction. Understanding the proper interactions in plasma turbulence, interactions that occur at physical scales captured only by kinetic theories in a six dimensional phase space, allows for correct implementation of turbulence models. These models can be employed for tokamak transport studies, which in turn can determine the most efficient operational regime of current machines and directly impact the design of future tokamak reactors. As plasma turbulence at kinetic levels is poorly understood to this day, while adequate kinetic turbulence models are yet to be developed, we turn towards space plasma configurations to offer simpler environments for isolating fundamental turbulence dynamics. This project will tackle plasma turbulence from a kinetic perspective, addressing fundamental questions pursued in the solar wind academic community, such as the identification of the dynamical route used for the dissipation of small scale turbulence energy and, at the same time, develop practical solutions in the form of new knowledge-based turbulence modes that will directly aid fusion research (a promising long term industrial goal).The work will unite collaborators from national (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy) and international (Max-Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Germany and University of California, Los Angeles, US) institutions, while being led by a researcher based at Coventry University.