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Fusion Energy Sciences
Fusion has the potential to provide a long-term, environmentally-acceptable
source of energy for the future. While research during the past 20 indicates
that it will likely be possible to design and build a fusion power plant, the
major challenge of making fusion energy economical remains. Improved simulation
and modeling of fusion systems using terascale computers is essential to
achieving the predictive scientific understanding needed to make fusion practical.
Integrated simulation of magnetic fusion systems involves the simultaneous
modeling of the core plasma, the edge plasma, and the plasma-wall interactions.
In each region of the plasma, there is anomalous transport driven by turbulence,
there are abrupt rearrangements of the plasma caused by large-scale instabilities,
and there are interactions with neutral atoms and electromagnetic waves. Many
of these processes must be computed on short time and space scales, while the
results of integrated modeling are needed for the whole device on long time scales.
The mix of complexity and widely differing scales in integrated modeling results
in a unique computational challenge
At present our understanding of the small-scale ("micro") instabilities that
degrade plasma confinement by causing the turbulent transport of energy and
particles and the large-scale ("macro") instabilities that can produce rapid
topological changes in the confining magnetic field are too incomplete to begin
developing integrated models. Similarly our understanding of plasma-material
interactions and the propagation of electromagnetic waves are also too primitive
to begin to develop integrated models. Thus, the first phase of SciDAC activities
in fusion energy sciences focuses on the development of improved physics models
of each of these elements.
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