Researchers find unexpected electric currents that can stabilize fusion reactions

Electric current is everywhere, from powering homes to controlling plasma, fueling fusion reactions to potentially increasing the vast cosmic magnetic fields. Now, the U.S. Scientists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) of the Department of Energy (DOE) have discovered that electric currents form in a way that was not previously known. The novel’s findings may give researchers a greater ability to bring about the fusion energy of bringing the sun and stars to Earth.

Ian Ochs, a graduate student in the Princeton University program for plasma physicist Prince and lead author of a paper selected as a specialty in history, said: “It is important to understand which processes in plasma produce electrical currents and which events may interfere with them. ” Physics of plasma. “It is the primary tool for controlling magnetic fusion research plasma.”

Fusion is the process that breaks down light elements together in the form of plasma – a free, hot, charged state of matter composed of electrons and atomic nuclei – producing massive amounts of massive radiation. Scientists are looking to mimic fusion for a virtual renewable power supply to generate electricity.

Unexpected currents in the plasma occur in the pedun nut-shaped fusion facilities called the toxins. Trends develop when a specific type of electromagnetic wave, such as a radio and microwave oven emits, forms spontaneously. These waves force some of the electrons already moving, “riding on the waves like surfers on a surfboard,” Ochs said.

But the frequency of these waves is important. When the frequency is high, the wave leads some electrons forward and others backward. Both motions cancel each other out and no current occurs.

However, when the frequency is low, the waves push forward on the electron and fall back on the atomic nuclei or ions, creating a net electric current after all. Ochs discovered that researchers could surprisingly create these currents when a low-frequency wave was a special type called “ion sound wave” that resembled sound waves in air.

The significance of this discovery extends from the relatively small scale of the laboratory to the vast scale of the universe. “There are magnetic fields all over the universe on different scales, including the size of galaxies, and we don’t know how they got there,” Ch said. “The mechanism we’ve discovered can help create the universe’s magnetic field, and any new methods that can generate a magnetic field are of interest to the astrophysics community.”

The results of pencil and paper calculations include mathematical expressions that give scientists the ability to calculate how these currents, which come into direct contact without electrons, evolve and grow. “The construction of these expressions was not straightforward,” Ochs said. “We had to condense these findings so that they would use clear and simple expressions enough to capture the main physics.”

The results deepened the understanding of the basic physical phenomenon and were unpredictable. They seem to contradict the traditional notion that current drives need to collide with electrons, Oches said.

“The question of whether waves in plasma can drive any current is really very deep and goes towards the basic interaction of plasma waves,” said Nathaniel Fisch, professor and associate chairman of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences, co-author of the paper. Director of Program in Plasma Physics. “Originating in achus, masterful, diodetic fashion with the rigors of mathematics is not only how these effects are sometimes balanced, but these conspiracies sometimes conspire to allow the creation of pure electrical currents.”

These findings provide the basis for future research. “What particularly excites me,” Fisch said, is that the mathematical formality, along with the physical intuition and insight that Ochche has acquired, will now put him in a position to challenge or even lay a strong foundation. More bizarre behavior in the interaction of waves with resonant particles in plasma. ”