Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these days?

Re:Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these d... by sballin on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @12:40PM (#19502760)

I'm a PhD student studying turbulence at the outer edge of plasmas in fusion experiments. Turbulence degrades plasma confinement, which makes it difficult to keep the plasma burning and produce power. I'm interested in whether different machine designs or operation procedures can help reduce turbulence.

At the moment I'm analyzing data from W7-X in Germany. It's a really cool device off the beaten path of tokamaks but seriously catching up in performance [1].

[1] See fig. 15 of https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6587/aaec25

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Re:Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these d... by pontifier on Thursday March 28, 2019 @03:57PM (#19515962)

Any chance you'd like to chat with me about a new type of fusion device I'm working on? At low density the theory is more like a collider, but as density increases, it might become turbulent and disrupt the periodic motion I expect. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

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Re:Ask HN: Physicists of HN, what are you working on these d... by IlyaOrson on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @08:35PM (#19507861)

Man I wish I could work with W7-X data, such an amazing stellarator!

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