Plasma Physics HEC Consortium

等离子体物理学是研究电离气体性质的学科。这些需要研究的过程涵盖了远离平衡态的物质的动力学理论、磁化和导电等离子体的流体动力学以及这些物质在巨大的时间和长度尺度上的相互作用，通常是在复杂的几何形状中。这样的问题很难用解析的方法来解决，因此等离子体物理学的大部分工作都依赖于高端计算（HEC）来进行大规模的模拟。这个HEC联盟将涵盖计算等离子体物理学的各个方面。这包括磁约束聚变（MCF）装置的建模，以优化反应堆性能，模拟优化激光粒子加速器源，高强度激光等离子体实验和激光驱动聚变的新方法。在所有这些领域，都需要HEC资源进行模拟，这对于指导实验和研究计划至关重要（包括为未来等离子体设施的性能提供可靠的预测能力）或从耦合的多尺度解释复杂的诊断集，非为了帮助保持英国在聚变反应堆设计和基本等离子体物理学方面的领先地位，HEC联合体需要英国国家级计算资源的块分配，所谓的Tier-1 HEC。这将使使用这些设施变得容易，并使联合王国能够在确定计算资源可用的情况下共同规划需要多年才能完成的计算方案。在为期四年的HEC Consortium期间，计算机架构可能会发生变化，因此为当前和未来的机器优化代码至关重要。此外，必须开发和实施新的物理学包，以使英国保持在这一研究的前沿。因此，该联盟还需要资金用于软件开发，以利用计算资源并保持代码世界领先。Tier-1 HEC和软件支持相结合的科学研究应用多种多样。该联合会的大部分研究将致力于改进聚变动力反应堆的设计。这是MCF和激光聚变能（IFE）。对于前者，HEC将专注于了解如何从热等离子体核心传输能量，并管理入射到周围墙壁上的极端热负荷。IFE的主要挑战是通过减轻燃料芯块内爆的不均匀性来实现激光驱动的聚变，了解可能阻止聚变的快电子的产生，并设计新的聚变方法，例如冲击或快速点火方案。激光驱动的等离子体加速器和辐射源有多种形式，从激光照射的固体到紧凑的毛细管放电;其应用包括基于快速点火的激光聚变、用于放射治疗的离子源和用于穿透探测的紧凑超快X射线源。

Plasma physics is the study of the properties of ionised gases. The processes, which need to be investigated, cover kinetic theory of matter far from its equilibrium state, fluid dynamics of magnetised and conductive plasmas and the interaction of these across a huge range of time and length scales, often in complex geometries. Such problems are rarely tractable analytically and thus much of plasma physics relies on High End Computing (HEC) to perform massive simulations.This HEC Consortium will cover all aspects of computational plasma physics. This includes modelling for magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) devices to optimize reactor performance, simulations to optimize laser-particle accelerator sources, novel approaches to high-intensity laser-plasma experiments and laser-driven fusion. In all these areas HEC resources are needed for simulations which are essential to either guide experiments and research programmes (including providing a reliable predictive capability for the performance of future plasma facilities) or to interpret the complex diagnostic sets from coupled multi-scale, non-linear and often relativistic processes.To help maintain the UK's leading role in fusion reactor design and basic plasma physics the HEC Consortium requires a block allocation of UK National level computing resource, so called Tier-1 HEC. This will ease the access to such facilities and allow the UK to collectively plan computational programmes, which will require many years to complete, in the certainty that the computing resources will be available. Over the four-year duration of this HEC Consortium computer architectures may change and optimising codes for current and future machines is therefore essential. In addition, new physics packages must be developed and implemented to keep the UK at the cutting edge of this research. The Consortium therefore also requires funding for software development to exploit the computing resources and keep codes world-leading.Applications of the scientific research enabled by the combination of Tier-1 HEC and software support are diverse. Much of the research of the Consortium will be directed at improving reactor designs for fusion power. This is both MCF and laser fusion energy (IFE). For the former the HEC will concentrate on understanding how energy is transported from the hot plasma core and managing the extreme heat loads incident on surrounding walls. IFE's primary challenge is achieving laser-driven fusion by mitigating non-uniformities in the fuel pellet implosion, understanding the generation of fast-electrons which may prevent fusion and designing novel approached to fusion, e.g. shock or fast ignition schemes. Laser-driven plasma accelerators and radiation sources have many forms, ranging from laser-irradiated solids to compact capillary discharges; with applications including fast-ignition based laser fusion, ion sources for radiotherapy and compact ultrafast x-ray sources for penetrative probing.