NIFS-PROC-69

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Title:

Joint Conference of 17th International Toki Conference on Physics of Flows and Turbulence in Plasmas and 16th International Stellarator/Heliotron Workshop 2007 Proceedings, Ceratopia Toki, Gifu, Japan, October 15-19, 2007

Date of publication:

Jan. 2008

Key words:

ITC, ISHW, Joint Conference, NIFS

Abstract:

The Joint Conference of 16th International Stellarator/Heliotron Workshop (ISHW) and 17th International Toki Conference (ITC) was held in Toki (Japan) October 15-19 2007 and organized by the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS). More than 200 experts in stellarator/heliotron research from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Ukraine and the United States of America gathered at the conference. The International Advisory committee chaired by O. Motojima, the International Program Committee (IPC) chaired by C. Hidalgo and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) chaired by H. Yamada have played the leading role in the elaboration of the scientific programme of the joint conference. This series of Stellarator Workshops is organized biennially in the framework of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Implementing Agreement on the Stellarator Concept. NIFS has organized the ITC as an annual meeting for fusion related sciences since its establishment in 1989. The IPC arranged 2 plenary talks, 1 review talk, 2 tutorial talks, 23 invited talks in addition to 201 contributed presentations.
The driving force behind magnetically confined fusion research is the design of magnetic traps to confine high temperature plasmas of deuterium and tritium in reactor relevant conditions (i.e. to produce self-sustaining fusion reactions to release useful energy). Although next step magnetic confinement devices, such as ITER, will be based on the tokamak idea, it is not clear that a unique magnetic configuration will be the answer to the various possible applications of fusion energy and hence other magnetic confinement concepts should be explored. The stellarator is an alternative magnetic confinement concept, with the specific advantages of an intrinsically steady state magnetic field and disruption free operation. The 3D magnetic field geometry in stellarators needs an elaborate optimization to guarantee confinement properties which meet the basic requirements of a fusion reactor plasma. Development of stellarators as an alternative fusion reactor concept is a key issue confronting the stellarator community. This issue was addressed in the meeting by including special sessions on topics which are particularly relevant in the stellarator line as reactor concepts (e.g. divertor physics).
From the perspective of the basic understanding of systems far from thermal equilibrium, fusion plasma studies are a fully multi-disciplinary area of research. The joint ISHW/ ITC conference has emphasized the topical area of "Flows and Turbulence" which are seen widely in nature and are also becoming a high priority research area in magnetically confined plasmas.
Stellarators and tokamaks are complementary magnetic confinement concepts, but nevertheless share many common aspects. Thus, we should exploit synergies with the tokamak wherever meaningful. The International Stellarator/Heliotron Workshop benefited greatly from the presence of invited talks from the tokamak community, as in previous stellarator workshops.
The development of stellarator/heliotron working groups, including confinement database and profile database working groups, has been very a successful activity to fully promote international collaboration. Invited talks reporting on these key activities in the stellarator community were included in the programme. In addition, the workshop has been an adequate forum to trigger discussion on possible additional stellarator/heliotron working groups. This discussion has been fully welcomed and stimulated by the IEA Stellarator Executive Committee. Considering that a fusion reactor stellarator should operate at high beta with control of particle and energy exhaust, it was agreed to promote the development of a new stellarator/heliotron working group for further development of helical divertor concepts.
Slides of some oral presentations as well as the proceedings are available at http://itc.nifs.ac.jp/. Extended papers of major contributions will be also published in the special issue of Plasma and Fusion Research (http://www.jspf.or.jp/PFR/).
The next seventeenth International Stellarator Workshop will be held in Princeton, USA in 2009 and will be hosted by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

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