What is it about?

This publication aims to study how well a tokamak keeps its contents hot: how good is the 'thermos'? What happens if you put coffee in the thermos or tea? Which of the two stays warm for longer? We aim to answer these questions in the case of hydrogen and deuterium plasmas in a tokamak. In the core of the ASDEX tokamak, we measure turbulent fluctuations and compare them with what models predict in a rigorous fashion.

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Why is it important?

This is important because we are not yet sure why tokamaks seem to keep heavier isotopes of hydrogen hotter than the lighter isotopes. Future reactors will use a mixture of deuterium (1 proton+ 1 neutron) and tritium (1 proton + 2 neutrons) fuel, so understanding the physics of energy confinement in tokamaks with varying isotope mass is paramount for the future of the field.

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This page is a summary of: Isotope effects on energy transport in the core of ASDEX-Upgrade tokamak plasmas: Turbulence measurements and model validation, Physics of Plasmas, August 2023, American Institute of Physics, DOI: 10.1063/5.0143416.
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