Fusion Science Centers Reach Out to Other Fields

This month, the US Department of Energy launches two research centers with members from university, industry, and government labs. They are the Center for Multiscale Plasma Dynamics, headed jointly by UCLA and the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Fusion Center for Extreme States of Matter and Fast Ignition Physics, led by the University of Rochester.

The multiscale center will focus on interactions between microscale turbulence and large-scale plasma effects. “You are dealing with things that might vary by six orders of magnitude in nonlinear systems,” says Bill Dorland of Maryland, center co-director with UCLA’s Steve Cowley. “These kinds of challenges need new algorithms, not just new computers.”

At the fast ignition center, scientists aim to trigger thermonuclear ignition using two lasers. A pellet of deuterium and tritium that has been compressed by a high-energy laser will be zapped with a petawatt laser to create an electron beam that enters the pellet’s compressed core and releases energy, says center director Riccardo Betti. This method of ignition, he adds, avoids the requirement of symmetry in conventional inertial fusion, as at the National Ignition Facility.

DOE is funding the centers with a total of $12 million over five years. Partners in the centers are contributing an additional 15%. Most of the money will be used to hire graduate students and postdocs, and to host workshops.

The centers were created in response to a recommendation in a 2001 National Academies of Sciences report, which said that ties should be strengthened between fusion research and other scientific fields. Traditionally, fusion research has been isolated because of its history of classified work, its focus on creating an energy source, and a tight budget. With a 30% decrease in the fusion budget a few years ago, says Dorland, “there was not a lot of free energy in the system to couple with other communities.”

Both centers will pursue research through experiment, theory, and simulation. They plan to collaborate with scientists in applied math, computing, and astrophysics.