Research at the Center for Physics, Space and Astrophysics

Supervisor: Professor Sandra Chapman and Richard Dendy

Characterization of edge instabilities and complex behaviour analysis

Plasmas in space and laboratory are an extensive source of complex phenomenology. Instabilities are common laboratories operation such as the "Joint European tokamak" (JET) located in Oxford, at Culham Centre for Fusion and Energy (CCFE). Research at the CFSA group, University of Warwick, has led me into close collaboration with researches at CCFE with access to the wide range of the experimental data. I started my PhD project focusing in a special phenomena occuring at the edge of the tokamak plasma called edge localised instabilties (ELMs). These events are bursts of energy and particles that reduce local confinement and may also affect the lifetime of the inner walls inside the tokamak. ELMs are presently an topical issue as their behaviour is highly altered by the space parameter conditions, including also the topology and geometry of the tokamak. Sice ELMs can effectively damage the inner-machine their control is becoming nowadays an interestingly field with direct application in upgraded tokamaks as ITER.

Areas of interest related to ELMs:

• ELMs periodicity affected by triggering events, like gas puffing.
  
• Kicks and vertical control
• Pellets and pacing
• Coupling and resonant behaviour