This event will only take place online. Contact the APAM Department for the Zoom link.

Speaker: Thomas Sunn Pedersen, Director of Stellarator Edge and Divertor Physics (E4), Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics

Title: Highlights and updates from Wendelstein 7-X

Abstract: Wendelstein 7-X is the world’s most advanced stellarator, and has been in operation since 2015 in Greifswald, Germany. In initial operation without water-cooled components, a number of key results have been achieved: The magnetic topology has been with an accuracy  better than 1:100,000, two key features of the numerical optimisation of the topology have been confirmed (the successful reduction of neoclassical transport, and the successful reduction of bootstrap current), and the exhaust concept chosen - the island divertor - has been shown to work remarkably well, with a world-record 26-seconds duration of so-called divertor-detachment. A number of further results have been achieved, and more are expected in the upcoming phase: The device has now been fully equipped with a water-cooled set of plasma-facing components, allowing discharges as long as 30 minutes at 10 MW of heating, when the device goes back in physics operation in 2022.

Biography: Prof. Dr. Thomas Sunn Pedersen is Director of Stellarator Edge and Divertor Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany. He is also a Professor of Physics at the University of Greifswald, Germany, and Adjunct Professor of Applied Physics at Columbia University. He received his PhD from MIT in Plasma Physics in 2000, working on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak, and then joined the faculty at Columbia University where he conceived, designed, built and operated the CNT stellarator. After receiving tenure in 2007, he left Columbia University in 2011 to take on his present appointment in Germany.