Alun Rees
Name: Alun Rees
Position: 4th Year PhD student
Supervisor: Professor Tony Arber
Co-Supervisor: Dr Keith Bennett
Project Title: Synthetic Diagnostics for Laser Fusion Simulations
Project
Experiments in the US and EU are currently trying to assess the feasibility of firing lasers directly at a deuterium-tritium fuel pellet to drive implosion and ultimately initiate fusion. This is all with a long-term goal of developing a laser driven fusion power source. One possible route forward is so called shock ignition. Here the laser power is kept low while the pellet is being compressed, to avoid deleterious plasma instabilities, and then the power is ramped up at the end to drive a final igniting shock. Warwick has a suite of simulation codes for modelling such experiments but these codes have either transport coefficients which are only approximately known or fast kinetic processes which are not directly observable. This project will develop synthetic diagnostics so that the simulations produce output which can be directly compared to the results of experiments. Going further the aim is to use the datasets from experiments in the US and France to see how well these help to constrain the unknowns in the simulations. The more tightly coupled simulation and experimental datasets will help understand more clearly what is happening in experiments and improve our modelling capability for future laser-fusion programmes.
Borrowed from: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/cfsa/opportunities/study/
Background
MSc in Fusion Energy, York Plasma Institute, University of York, 2017.
MSc Project: "Synthetic VISAR diagnostic for Laser Fusion Simulations"
MPhys (Integrated Masters), Durham University, 2016.
MPhys Project: "Durham Radio Telescope: Measuring the mass of the Milky Way"
Work Contributions
- Testing the Bremsstrahlung routine of the EPOCH Particle-In-Cell code
- Raytracing synthetic diagnostic
- X-ray backlighter synthetic diagnostic
- Implementing 1D and Wedge boundary condition options for the Odin code
- Running simulations of Omega experiments using Freyja and Odin codes
- Implementing the refractive raytracing routine into Odin
- Comparing simulations to experimental data of the 2019 OMEGA UK campaign
- Running and analysing simulations of asymmetric ICF implosions
Presentations
| Conference | Location | Date | Presentation Type | Content |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pint of Science 2019 | Coventry, UK | 20th May 2019 | Talk | |
| HPL Christmas Conference | Abingdon, UK | 16th December 2019 | Poster | HPL ConferenceLink opens in a new window |
| CFSA Mini Seminar | Online | 15th April 2020 | Talk | CFSA Seminar Y2Link opens in a new window |
| Warwick Poster Session | Online | 6th May 2020 | Poster | Warwick PosterLink opens in a new window |
| IoP Plasma Physics Conference | Online/London | 6th April 2021 | Poster | IoP ePosterLink opens in a new window |
| AWE Student Conference | Online | 14th April 2021 | Poster | AWE PosterLink opens in a new window |
| CFSA Seminar | Online | 28th July 2021 | Talk | CFSA Seminar Y3Link opens in a new window |
| Centre for Computational Plasma Physics Annual meeting | Warwick, UK | 25th March 2022 | Talk | |
| IoP Plasma Physics Conference | Liverpool, UK | 11th April 2022 | Talk | |
| Direct-Drive and Fast Ignition workshop | Madrid, Spain | 4th May 2022 | Talk | |
| Physics PG Seminar | Warwick, UK | 12th May 2022 | Talk | |
| CFSA Seminar | Warwick, UK | 27th June 2022 | Talk | |
| ECLIM 2022 | Frascati, Italy | 19th September 2022 | Poster |
Teaching
PX149 Mathematics for Physicists
I was a class tutor for the PX149 problem classes between 2018 and 2021. As part of the role then I marked assignments and lead classes of 6-8 students, going through the weekly assignments as well as helping them to understand new topics and how they tie in with problems in Physics. During lockdown due to the covid-19 pandemic, then I was required to switch to virtual classes and adapt my classes. As part of this, then I made presentations and used quiz software to encourage student interaction.
PX281 Computational Physics
During my final year, I assisted with the computational physics workshops. Assisting students with any problems that they were having with the weekly python assignments that were completed as Jupyter notebooks. This course was directed by Yorck Ramachers.
PX150 Physics Programming Workshop
In 2022 I assisted with the first year physics programming course, introducing the students to Python and the concept of programming. The workshops had ~60 students working at a desktop and me and several other assistant provided assistance and answered the questions of the students. This course was directed by Michal Kreps.
CFSA Computing
As part of my role as CFSA computing assistant, I developed a document to help students/staff that are new to using the CSC (Centre for Scientific Computing) computers. The document can be found here:
CFSA Computing GuideLink opens in a new window
Note that Sam Maloney has now taken over this role, and any CFSA computing questions should be directed to him.
Contact Details
Email: alun.rees@warwick.ac.uk
Office: PS1.17
Address: Department of Physics,
University of Warwick, Coventry,
CV4 7AL
Website: Github