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Published by Fusion Energy Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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Editor: James A. Rome Issue 131 April 2011
E-Mail: jar@ornl.gov Phone (865) 482-5643
On the Web at http://www.ornl.gov/sci/fed/stelnews
Coordinated Working Group
Meeting for Stellarator-Heliotron
Research
About 30 local and 10 remote attendees (from IPP Greifswald,
CIEMAT, and Kharkov, see Fig. 1) participated in
the Coordinated Working Group Meeting (CWGM8.0).
The meeting was held March 16–17, 2011, at the National
Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) in Toki, Japan. Originally,
it was planned to have more foreign participants on
site with more extensive face-to-face discussions, as had
been done at past meetings. However, this was impossible
due to the sequence of tragic events triggered by the huge
earthquake that occurred on March 11. Consequently,
some sessions originally planned for this meeting, such as
Validation of Transport Models and Joint Experiments,
were postponed, and some sessions were shortened. As a
result, the CWGM8.0 became a supplementary meeting to
a more complete CWGM8 (say, 8.1) to be held in the near
future.
The meeting was composed of six sessions including the
Opening, in which a welcome address was given and the
highlights of LHD's 14th campaign and the schedule for
the 15th campaign were reported, along with a call for
joint experiments utilizing LHD (by Prof. H.Yamada).
In the Magnetic Topology session, a model for the interaction
between poloidal flow and magnetic islands was presented
and applied to interpret the experimental findings in
LHD (growth/healing). Some of the experts on this issue
(mainly theoreticians) at NIFS also joined in wide-ranging
discussions. Also reported was a biasing experiment performed
in the Tohoku University Heliac (TU-Heliac) to
actively investigate the impact of magnetic islands at the
edge as a drag term on the poloidal rotation.
H-mode issues were discussed along with experimental
observations in LHD (“Edge transport barrier formation in
stochastic region”) and TJ-II (“Signature of turbulence
spreading during the H-L back transition”). Also reported
was an attempt at equilibrium reconstruction for H-mode
discharges in W7-AS, by using VMEC2000/diagno. Equilibrium
reconstruction (including a stochastic region) will
enable us to more accurately investigate the role of neoclassical
ambipolar radial electric field as a “bias” to Hmode
in helical plasmas, which has been continuously discussed
in CWGM collaborations.
The Database Issues session comprised a discussion of a
joint paper for the coming EPS meeting, on “Discriminant
analysis on International Stellarator-Heliotron Confinement
DataBase (ISH-CDB),” to identify the variable causing
clustering in the global energy confinement data. The
status and progress of the Profile Database (ISH-PDB)
were also reported, with remarks on the fast-growing edge
turbulence database, requests to update data for high-beta
discharges, the recent inclusion of HSX-CERC data, and
so on. How to store the equilibrium data (corresponding to
registered profile data) has been under discussion, and it
was agreed to require authentication for access. An example
of this scheme has been prepared for a registered W7-
AS high-beta discharge, and we discussed how to notify
In this issue . . .
Coordinated Working Group Meeting
(CWGM8.0) for Stellarator-Heliotron Research
Owing to the massive earthquake in Japan on 11
March, an abbreviated (and partially virtual) CWGM
meeting was held in Toki, Japan. A summary of the
sessions is provided. ............................................... 1
The earthquake effects in Japanese fusion laboratories
The effects of the earthquake on Japanese fusion
research are presented in this brief report. ............. 3
In memoriam: Horst Wobig
On 18 March 2011, Dr. Horst Wobig passed away. He
died amidst his family. Dr. Wobig was always a very
industrious person and actively pursued scientific
research until the very end of his life. He was talented
in many fields including music, and he was a valued
friend to many. ........................................................ 3