Understanding and modelling kinetic turbulence in magnetized plasmas

等离子体物理是英国磁聚变研究项目的核心，也是EPSRC能源主题的重要支柱。通过磁约束核聚变发电代表了一项有前途的努力：旨在提供丰富、廉价、清洁、安全和可靠的能源，以支持蓬勃发展的经济，同时为应对全球环境挑战提供一种可行的替代化石燃料的方法。磁约束核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，因为众所周知，湍流混合会增强粒子和热量在磁性表面上的传输，最终导致等离子体约束的丧失，从而停止聚变反应。了解等离子体湍流中适当的相互作用，这些相互作用发生在物理尺度上，只有在六维相空间中的动力学理论才能捕捉到，这允许正确实现湍流模型。这些模型可以用于托卡马克输运研究，进而可以确定当前机器的最有效运行机制，并直接影响未来托卡马克反应堆的设计。由于等离子体在动力学水平上的湍流至今仍知之甚少，而适当的动力学湍流模型尚未开发，我们转向空间等离子体配置，为分离基本湍流动力学提供更简单的环境。该项目将从动力学角度解决等离子体湍流，解决太阳风学术界所追求的基本问题，例如确定用于小尺度湍流能量耗散的动力学路线，同时，以新的基于知识的湍流模式的形式开发实用的解决方案，这将直接帮助聚变研究（一个有前途的长期工业目标）。这项工作将联合来自国家（Culham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加州大学洛杉矶分校）机构的合作者，同时由考文垂大学的一名研究人员领导。

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.