Resumen de Theoretical explanations of I-mode impurity removal and H-mode poloidal edge asymmetries

• The Sun provides fusion energy, in the form of light and heat, to our planet every single day. The fusion community has created ‘mini-Suns on Earth’ to obtain unlimited, cheap, safe and clean energy:

  ✔ Unlimited raw materials: First, the raw materials, water and stones (Figure 1(a)), are very abundant.

  Moreover, they are sparred in a geographically uniform manner, thus avoiding energy motivated wars.

  ✔ The fusion product is not radioactive: Second, the fusion product is clean. In fact, it is the helium that fills children balloons and produces a high-pitched voice when inhaled (Figure 1(a)).

  ✔ Completely safe: Third, it is completely safe because it is not a chain reaction (Figure 1(a)).

  ✔ Extremely lucrative: Fourth, it can be so efficient and cheap that as little as two liters of water and 250 grams of stones are enough to cover a European family’s demand for energy for an entire year (Figure 1(b)).

  This research addresses the following three key challenges towards a renewable energy landscape:

  • First, the discovery of materials that can withstand the temperature of the Sun shifts the fusion challenge from heat handling to impurity removal, as introduced in Section 2.1.

  Later, in Section 3, I propose the first method of measuring the radial impurity flux from currently available diagnostics. It provides a means of solving the impurity accumulation problem while providing free fueling for optimum fusion power plant performance.

  • Second, solar flares, caused by turbulence, lead to energy losses.

  Thankfully, there are some physical phenomena that reduce the turbulence on the surface, increasing the efficiency of the power plant by more than 100%. This is known as L-H transition, from the low (L) to the high (H) energy confinement mode.

  However, many wall impurities are absorbed in H mode, so discovering how to remove them would increase the efficiency even more. In the last decade a new mode has been observed, the improved (I), with high energy confinement and impurity removal, which had not been explained yet. The first explanation of the H-mode 50 years ago had more than 1500 citations. Thanks to the impurity radial particle flux measuring technique developed, I present the first theoretical explanation of the improved mode in Sections 2.2 and 3, which also removes impurities while absorbing fuel for free, which expects the same citations and impact.

  • Third, recent measurements have put into question even the theoretical explanation of the H- mode based on turbulence reduction, as introduced in Section 2.3. In Section 4, I discover the physical phenomena responsible for this star behavior. Moreover, I propose a breakthrough collisional, a.k.a.

  non-turbulent, theoretical model that is able to address the concern regarding H-mode turbulence reduction by capturing the experimental values.