Frontiers in Fusion Research (eBook)

Frontiers in Fusion Research provides a systematic overview of the latest physical principles of fusion and plasma confinement. It is primarily devoted to the principle of magnetic plasma confinement, that has been systematized through 50 years of fusion research. Frontiers in Fusion Research begins with an introduction to the study of plasma, discussing the astronomical birth of hydrogen energy and the beginnings of human attempts to harness the Sun's energy for use on Earth. It moves on to chapters that cover a variety of topics such as: • charged particle motion, • plasma kinetic theory, • wave dynamics, • force equilibrium, and • plasma turbulence. The final part of the book describes the characteristics of fusion as a source of energy and examines the current status of this particular field of research. Anyone with a grasp of basic quantum and analytical mechanics, especially physicists and researchers from a range of different backgrounds, may find Frontiers in Fusion Research an interesting and informative guide to the physics of magnetic confinement.

Mitsuru Kikuchi took his PhD at University of Tokyo in 1981 and has been working at JAEA on magnetic confinement fusion, especially on tokamak systems. He worked for 23 years in Japanese large tokamak JT-60 and was director of JT-60 for the last two years and explored steady state operation of tokamaks. He has also worked in reactor design and strategic planning of fusion development. He is currently chairman of the board of editors of the Nuclear Fusion Journal, visiting professor at Kyushu University and guest professor at Osaka University.

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Frontier in Fusion Research describes a systematic overview of the latest physical principles of fusion and plasma confinement. It deals with the physics of fusion and plasma confinement related to the fundamental disciplines, such as topology, integrability of dynamical equation, time arrow of kinetic equation, continuous spectrum, self-organized criticality, etc. Chapters include: Sun on the Earth: Endless Energy from Hydrogen; Hydrogen Fusion: Light Nuclei and Theory of Fusion Reactions; Confinement Bottle: Topology of Magnetic Bottle and Force Equilibrium; and Charged Particle Motion: Lagrange-Hamilton Orbital Dynamics.Students who have learned the basics of quantum and analytical mechanics will find the subject matter easy to understand, thanks to a brief introduction. Researchers in other fields may be interested by the author's approach to the scientific principle of magnetic plasma confinement which has been systematized over 50 years of fusion research since its beginning in 1958.