G. Grieger

Progress in stellarator/heliotron research: 1981?1986

Substantial progress was made during the period 1981-1986 in plasma parameters, physics understanding, and improvement of the stellarator/heliotron concept. Recent advances include (1) substantial achievements in higher plasma parameters and currentless plasma operation, (2) new theoretical results with respect to higher beta limits, second stability region, effect of a helical axis, effect of electric fields on transport, and reduction of secondary currents; and (3) improvements to the reactor concept. The key issues have been further refined, and the short-term direction of the program is clear; a number of new facilities that were designed to resolve these issues are about to come into operation or are in the final design stages. This report summarizes these advances.

Plasma physics and controlled nuclear fusion research (Summaries of the 12th IAEA International Conference, Nice, France, 12-19 October 1988)

The Twelfth IAEA Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research featured some seventy tokamak experimental papers, pertaining to every issue of tokamak physics. While previous conferences have sometimes been dominated by a single result, for example achievement of high nτ or T-values, such was not the case of the Nice meeting. Rather, this conference was characterized by a multitude of excellent scientific results on virtually all aspects of tokamak behaviour: confinement, operational limits such as density and beta MHD stability, heating, current drive and, to a lesser extent, impurity control. Taken together, these results lay a solid foundation for continued progress and future steps.

Conference Report on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research

In summarizing the results of this Conference, the first fact we note is that transition to toroidal machines is nearly complete now in both high- and low-β physics, with one exception, – the mirror machines.

Progress in Stellarator/Heliotron Research: 1981-1986. Executive Summary

Substantial progress in plasma parameters, physics understanding, and stellarators/heliotron concept improvement has been made in the five years since a previous assessment of the field. This includes substantial achievements in higher plasma parameters and currentless plasma operation; new theoretical results with respect to higher beta limits, second stability region, effect of a helical axis, effect of electric fields on transport, and reduction of secondary currents; and improvements to the reactor concept. The key issues have been further refined, and the short-term direction of the program is clear; a number of new facilities that were designed to resolve these issues are about to come into operation or are in the final design stages. Details of the design of the next-generation experiments will follow from the results of the near-term experiments.

Report on the 4.International Stellarator Workshop

The Fourth International Stellarator Workshop took place from September 13–15, 1982, in Cape May, NJ, USA, and was attended by over 100 participants. Contributions came from all countries active in stellarator research.