Energetic Particles in Magnetic Confinement Systems

Proceedings of an IAEA Technical Meeting

Takayama, 9–11 November 2005

IAEA-TM-27024

Foreword

The 9th IAEA Technical Meeting on Energetic Particles in Magnetic Confinement Systems was hosted by the National Institute for Fusion Science and held at the Hida Earth Wisdom Center, Takayama, Japan, from 9 to 11 November 2005. About 60 participants from 10 countries attended the meeting. K. Toi from the National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki-shi, Japan, was the chairperson of the meeting.

Previous meetings in this series were held in Kiev (1989), Aspenas (1991), Trieste (1993), Princeton (1995), JET/Abingdon (1997), Naka (1999), Gothenburg (2001) and San Diego (2003).

The objective of the meeting was to present and discuss the status of energetic particles theory and experiments and their interaction with plasmas in magnetic confinement devices. Energetic particles externally injected (e.g. heating beams) or internally generated (e.g. alpha particles) can trigger major instabilities leading to loss of plasma energy and mass. This is of major importance for a nuclear fusion reactor where external heating by neutral beams and positive feedback by alpha particle heating are important mechanisms to ensure realization of fusion in an economic way.

The meeting programme included a total of 51 papers (16 invited talks, 13 oral presentations and 22 posters). The participants presented the status of experimental and theoretical work on supra-thermal electrons and ions in a wide variety of magnetic confinement geometries. The topics under discussion were:

(a) Alpha particles physics,

(b) Transport of energetic particles,

(c) Effects of energetic particles in magnetic confinement fusion devices,

(d) Collective phenomena: Alfvén eigenmodes, energetic particle modes and others,

(e) Runaway electrons and disruptions,

(f) Diagnostics for energetic particles.

The meeting ended with a summary session on each topic. The summary will be published in the Nuclear Fusion journal.

Selected contributions and invited papers have been published in a special issue of the Nuclear Fusion journal. The chairperson of the IAC, K. Toi, was the guest editor.

The local organizer prepared a web site containing additional information about the meeting and side events: http://htpp.lhd.nifs.ac.jp/IAEATM-EP2005/ .

Editorial note