A New UK Fusion Plasma Physics Programme at Warwick University

英国最近已成为能源净进口国。人们认识到，到本世纪中叶，发展商用聚变发电将为能源供应提供重要的战略选择。核聚变具有独特的吸引力，因为它不依赖于将化石燃料转化为温室气体，也不会引起与核废料长期储存相关的问题。等离子体热核聚变背后的物理原理也是英国战略国防科学能力的核心。英国是新一代国际聚变等离子体研究设施的关键利益相关者。其中包括由六个条约伙伴支持的磁禁闭设施热核实验堆：欧盟、美国、俄罗斯联邦、日本、中国人民共和国和大韩民国。库勒姆科学中心拥有世界旗舰磁聚变设施JET，以及开创性的桅杆实验。英国在这一领域的国防科学需求部分由美国国家点火设施(NIF，位于劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室)和新的激光设施猎户座在奥尔德马斯顿启动。英国政府支持磁约束聚变电力发展的快速通道战略，并为新的国防相关设施提供资金。聚变等离子体研究对英国PLC的能源、环境和国防需求至关重要。此外，当代聚变等离子体研究提供了一个科学的宏大挑战的吸引力，结合了新一代先进的大型国际设施。这项提议寻求在华威创建一个新的聚变等离子体物理学卓越中心，与位于库勒姆的英国磁聚变计划建立密切联系。这将是一个阶段性的变化，它建立在华威-库勒姆合作的成功跨学科记录的基础上，该合作的工作得到了EPSRC(主要通过库拉姆)和PPARC(主要通过向华威提供滚动赠款)的支持。该项目将由桑德拉·查普曼教授(华威)和理查德·丹迪教授(库勒姆)共同指导，他们在联合科学和管理合作方面有着广泛的记录。为了在聚变等离子体领域建立一个新的团队，华威将在聚变等离子体研究的三个领域分别任命一名永久学者：实验等离子体数据解释和预测；分析理论；以及使用高性能超级计算(HPC)的计算等离子体物理，该计算等离子体物理与华威科学计算中心(CSC)相连。最初的科学重点将是无碰撞、动力学效应；这些是聚变等离子体接近点火区域的一个显著特征。这些任命旨在提高英国在这一领域的能力，因此必须在国际和全国范围内具有吸引力。因此，华威还将承诺刊登广告，并随后支持这些永久学术职位，达到读者的水平，如果候选人的素质值得的话。每名学者将由两名博士后和一名博士后项目学生协助。最多6名博士后的任命将提供一个目前不存在的英国职业发展渠道：考虑到最近聚变等离子体物理学领域高质量英国博士数量的激增，这一点尤其及时。将密切参与库勒姆的试验方案(桅杆和喷气推进机)，预计一些被任命者将积极参加喷气推进机工作队。

The UK has recently become a net importer of energy. It is recognized that commercial fusion power development will provide an important strategic option for energy supply by mid century. Fusion is uniquely attractive because it does not rely on the conversion of fossil fuels to greenhouse gases, nor give rise to issues associated with the long term storage of nuclear waste. The physical principles underlying thermonuclear fusion in plasmas are also central to the UK's strategic defence science capabilities. The UK is a key stakeholder in the new generation of international fusion plasma research facilities. These include the magnetic confinement facility ITER, supported by six treaty partners: the EU, the USA, Russian Federation, Japan, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of Korea. The Culham Science Center hosts the world's flagship magnetic fusion facility, JET, together with the pioneering MAST experiment. The UK's defence science needs in this field are met in part by the US National Ignition Facility (NIF, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and by the new laser facility ORION being initiated at Aldermaston. The UK Government endorses the Fast Track strategy for magnetic confinement fusion power development and is funding the new defence-related facilities.Fusion plasma research is central to the energy, environmental, and defence needs of UK PLC. In addition, contemporary fusion plasma research offers the attractions of a scientific grand challenge, combined with a new generation of advanced large scale international facilities. This proposal seeks to create a new centre of excellence in fusion plasma physics at Warwick, with strong links to the UK magnetic fusion programme at Culham. This will be a step change enhancement that builds on the successful interdisciplinary track record of the Warwick-Culham collaboration, whose work is supported both by EPSRC (primarily through Culham) and by PPARC (primarily through a rolling grant to Warwick). The project will be jointly directed by Prof Sandra Chapman (Warwick) and Prof Richard Dendy (Culham) who have an extensive record of joint scientific and managerial collaboration. To create a new group in fusion plasmas, Warwick would appoint a permanent academic in each of three fields of fusion plasma research: experimental plasma data interpretation and prediction; analytical theory; and computational plasma physics using high performance supercomputing (HPC), linked to the Warwick Centre for Scientific Computing (CSC). The initial scientific focus will be on collisionless, kinetic effects; these are a distinctive feature of fusion plasmas approaching the ignition regime. These appointments are designed to increase UK capacity in this field, and therefore must be attractive internationally as well as nationally. Warwick will therefore in addition undertake to advertise, and subsequently support, these permanent academic posts up to the level of Reader where merited by the quality of the candidate. Each academic will be assisted by two postdocs and a PhD project student. The appointment of up to six postdocs will provide a UK-based career development channel which does not at present exist: this is particularly timely given the recent surge in numbers of high quality UK PhDs in fusion plasma physics. Close engagement with the experimental programme at Culham (MAST and JET) will be developed, and it is expected that some appointees will, for example, participate actively in JET Task Forces.