
Physics of Plasmas
The research activity of the plasma physics group is mainly concerned with the study of plasmas of interest for controlled thermonuclear fusion with magnetic confinement. It is carried out in collaboration with researchers at Consorzio RFX, a research center in plasma physics, where more than a hundred researchers from different research institutions (CNR, ENEA, University of Padova) work together. The group's main research activities revolve around the RFX-mod2 experiments at the RFX Consortium and DTT at the ENEA laboratories in Frascati.
Thanks to the RFX Consortium, the group's activities are embedded in a broad international context, with participation in EUROfusion and ITER. In addition to RFX-mod2, the RFX Consortium also hosts the Neutral Beam Test facility (NBTF), an international experiment to study ITER's neutral particle injectors, unique in the world in terms of performance and size.
The plasma physics group is engaged on several projects relevant for EU-DEMO, i.e. the first European controlled thermonuclear fusion prototype, in close collaboration with international research centers.
The plasma physics group is also directly involved in an ambitious international project, the Divertor Tokamak Test facility (DTT), under construction at ENEA's Frascati laboratories. DTT will become one of the world's leading tokamaks. Its main goal is to study solutions for managing heat flows in future reactors. DTT is currently the leading example in the world of public-private fusion research partnership.
Many bachelor and master thesis projects are offered by the plasma physics group and are available here.
Staff
Full Professors: Piero Martin
Associate Professors: Leonardo Giudicotti
Assistant Professors: Maurizio Giacomin, Lidia Piron
PhD students
Rachele Cicioni, Matteo Gambrioli, Miriam La Matina, Sara Molisani, Luca Orlandi
External collaborators
Matteo Agostini, Tommaso Bolzonella, Gianluigi Serianni, Matteo Zuin
Research activities
Plasma turbulence simulation
An accurate evaluation of heat and particle transport in a fusion plasma is of fundamental importance in the design and operation of future magnetic confinement fusion devices. A fusion plasma is characterized by significant spatial density and temperature gradients, where the temperature drops from hundreds of thousands degree in the core plasma region to approximately room temperature near the vessel wall. Large spatial gradients provide a strong drive for several plasma microinstabilities in a strongly non-linear dynamics, thus generating turbulence. Plasma turbulence dynamics is typically studies by mean of complex three-dimensional turbulence simulations, which evolve the two-fluid equations (electrons and ions) in the plasma boundary and the gyrokinetic equation in the core region. Both the fluid and the gyrokinetic models are coupled to Maxwell’s equations for the evolution of the electromagnetic field. The results of these simulations, which are typically performed in supercomputers running over several thousands of CPUs, are continuously validated against experimental data, and guide the development of first-principles scaling laws, which provide a very useful tool during the design of plasma scenario starting from engineering parameters.
Contacts: Maurizio Giacomin
Control of Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic Instabilities and Plasma Performance
To ensure the optimal operation of a magnetic confinement experiment, controlling plasma instabilities, described within the context of Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic theory, and plasma performance is of fundamental importance. This is the context of my research activity, which is conducted within the EUROFusion framework in international experiments such as MAST-U (United Kingdom), TCV (Switzerland), AUG (Germany), WEST (France), and JT-60 SA (Japan). The expertise acquired in these experiments has enabled me to contribute to the design of controllers for DTT and ITER.
Contatti: Lidia Piron
Diagnostics of fusion plasmas
The measurement of the parameters that characterize a thermonuclear plasma is fundamental for fusion studies. The techniques used for this purpose are called diagnostics and their study and development is an important field of fusion research. Among the most used diagnostic techniques, those based on the study of the interaction between plasma and laser beams are particularly effective, a phenomenon which gives rise to a great variety of physical effects and which allows the accurate measurement of fundamental quantities, such as the density, the temperature and the magnetic field of the plasma. The development and application of these techniques to fusion plasmas poses formidable challenges for the operating conditions of measuring instruments, exposed to the extreme conditions of energy flows, particles and radiation typical of high-temperature plasmas. in the Plasma Physics group there are consolidated research capabilities in this sector, acquired through an active role in the development of laser diagnostics for the RFX, JET, ITER, JT60-SA, W7-X and DTT experiments.
Contatti: Leonardo Giudicotti
DTT experiment (Divertor Tokamak Test facility)
DTT is a high magnetic field tokamak (major torus radius 2.20 m, minor radius 0.70 m), capable of a maximum plasma current of 5.5 MA. DTT will explore high-performance plasma scenarios and energy and particle flow management in a plasma under conditions relevant to a demonstration fusion reactor. DTT will be essential to the European and global strategy in support of ITER and toward early demonstration reactors.
DTT, currently under construction, is managed by the companỳ consortium Dtt s.c.a r.l., which currently has as partners Enea, CNR, Eni, Infn, Consorzio RFX, and the universities of Milano Bicocca, Tor Vergata, Tuscia, and Politecnico di Torino.
The DFA research group is in charge of managing the physics activities of DTT (P. Martin is currently in charge of the physics activities of the experiment), and contributes to the design of Thomson Scattering laser diagnostics and the numerical study of the stability and transport properties of the plasmas that will be produced in DTT.
Contacts: Piero Martin