Göttingen 2025 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik

P 20: Magnetic Confinment Fusion/HEPP V

P 20.3: Hauptvortrag

Donnerstag, 3. April 2025, 14:40–15:10, ZHG102

Simulating boundary turbulence in fusion reactors in different confinement, ELM and detachment regimes — •Wladimir Zholobenko¹, Andreas Stegmeir¹, Kaiyu Zhang¹, Konrad Eder¹, Jan Pfennig¹, Christoph Pitzal¹, Philipp Ulbl¹, Matthias Bernert¹, Michael Griener¹, and the ASDEX Upgrade Team² — ¹MPI for Plasma Physics, Garching, Germany — ²see author list of H. Zohm et al., 2024 Nucl. Fusion

Magnetic confinement fusion reactors must combine high plasma energy confinement with manageable heat exhaust. Both are determined to a large degree by turbulent transport across the very plasma edge. While present day experiments focus on finding optimal regimes of operation, only first-principles based computer simulations can make reliable extrapolations to future fusion reactors.

This contribution focuses on recent progress with the GRILLIX code in understanding high-confinement, detached and ELM-free regimes on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. Transitions between various micro-instabilities, their non-linear dynamics and interaction with large-scale flows are shown to be important for the understanding of the varying plasma edge conditions. For optimal operation, plasma shaping and the control of the scrape-off layer and divertor dynamics are critical.

Turbulence is a multi-scale, chaotic, dynamical phenomenon. Simulating it challenges todays top tier supercomputers, in particular for even larger future machines. Therefore, optimized model complexity and software design are key to facilitate fusion reactor predictions.

Keywords: plasma edge; turbulence; transport barrier; divertor detachment; simulations