Containing high-energy particles within fusion reactors has been a persistent challenge. When alpha particles escape the plasma, it prevents the core from reaching the temperature and density needed for sustained fusion. Engineers typically employ intricate magnetic confinement systems, yet these can have field gaps that are difficult and time-consuming to locate and fix.
The team, publishing in Physical Review Letters, introduced a new approach that accelerates the process of designing magnetic confinement systems for stellarators by a factor of ten compared to the conventional method, without compromising precision. This represents a major advance for stellarators, a reactor design dating back to the 1950s.
"What's most exciting is that we're solving something that's been an open problem for almost 70 years," said Josh Burby, assistant professor of physics at UT and the study's lead author. "It's a paradigm shift in how we design these reactors."
Stellarators use external coils to create magnetic fields that confine plasma, forming a so-called "magnetic bottle." Traditional modeling relies on Newtonian dynamics, which is highly accurate but computationally prohibitive, especially when evaluating numerous design variations. Simpler alternatives like perturbation theory are faster but prone to significant inaccuracies.
The new technique applies symmetry theory to bypass these issues, enabling accurate prediction of magnetic field gaps without exhaustive computation.
"There is currently no practical way to find a theoretical answer to the alpha-particle confinement question without our results," Burby noted. "Direct application of Newton's laws is too expensive. Perturbation methods commit gross errors. Ours is the first theory that circumvents these pitfalls."
Beyond stellarators, the approach can also address a critical concern in tokamak reactors involving runaway electrons, which risk damaging the reactor walls. The new model can pinpoint potential escape routes for these electrons as well.
Research Report:Nonperturbative Guiding Center Model for Magnetized Plasmas
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