This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Anomalous local turbulent transport in plasmas will be measured directly with novel diagnostics. By measuring critical parameters, the fundamental scaling laws of transport will be compared with various theories. A key element of the project is the diagnostic uses of feedback. A first ever ion temperature fluctuation diagnostic uses an ion energy analyzer which is modulated by a feedback signal derived from the fluctuations. The cross-correlation of this measurement with the potential fluctuations yields the ion thermal transport. The chief intellectual merit of the project lies in the challenge posed in the central issue in plasma anomalous transport physics: Bohm and gyro-Bohm scaling. This will be done via novel basic physics experiments and correlated models.
Many of the general concepts and methodologies, especially the experimental determination of a nonlinear turbulent system modeling via feedback, are quite extrapolatable to many problems in fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, chemical reaction systems etc. with great potential benefit. The integration of research and education will be accomplished by exposure of the students to the clearly interdisciplinary research represented by the project, containing physics, applied physics, system and control engineering both in the laboratory and in the classes. Enhancement of the infrastructure of research and education will be accomplished via collaborations with several national and international universities and laboratories.
