When do Plasmas Explode?

Magnetized plasmas - both in nature and in the laboratory - frequently erupt in sudden, dramatic events that release large amounts of energy and disrupt confinement. This poses a serious challenge for magnetic fusion concepts, as gigajoules of energy can be unleashed in fractions of a millisecond, potentially damaging structural components and reducing the operational lifetime of fusion devices. In this talk, the speaker will explore the instability mechanisms behind these events and demonstrate that plasmas are often metastable. Triggering such a metastable state provides a clear pathway to explosive behavior, a phenomenon that is evident in the so-called edge localized modes (ELMs) observed in fusion experiments. The talk will conclude with proposed strategies to mitigate or avoid these damaging explosive events.

Speaker: Steven Cowley, Princeton University