Energy transport investigation in spherical tokamaks by means of integrated modelling and gyrokinetic theory

The UK (through the £200 million STEP program) and the world (the ~£30 billion ITER program) hope to enter the age of burning fusion plasmas over the next two decades. But there are serious obstacles to designing and running these fusion reactors: this project will use computational modelling to create a tokamak reactor in a supercomputer, and thus address how these issues can be surmounted. It is particularly critical to know whether the energetic fusion products (Helium ions) will create large scale instabilities and burst free from the magnetic field designed to contain them. The studentship is supervised jointly by Warwick University (Dr. Ben McMillan) and CCFE Culham (Dr. Francesco Palermo), the UK’s premier fusion facility, and will involve the use of both fundamental plasma theory and sophisticated computational models. This will allow a student to be involved in the UK’s world-leading fusion program, through CCFE Culham, which hosts two tokamaks, and an associated theory and experimental physics program. There are only two other facilities of similar scope in the world. CCFE hosts the £50 million MAST-Upgrade tokamak that has recently been commissioned, as well as the JET tokamak. The Warwick supervisor will provide theory and computational expertise, and access to the world’s premiere computational facilities. Over the course of the PhD, the student will work on site at CCFE for around half the time.

CCFE is part of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and is based at Culham Science Centre near Oxford, England – a major international fusion research site since the early 1960s. Today we continue to advance fusion science and engineering as the world comes together to build the first reactor-scale experiment, ITER, in France. Looking a step beyond ITER, we are developing technology and designs for the first fusion power plants.