On June the 4th I arrived in Seville to begin my internship at CNA thanks to FuseNet support. Here I had the opportunity to work with a young and bright team of physicists on the data obtained by the FILD detector installed on ASDEX Upgrade and developed in the CNA.
Determination of fast-ion-orbit kick induced by externally applied magnetic perturbation
During my two months in Seville I worked on the determination of fast-ion-orbit kick induced by externally applied magnetic perturbation using the light-ion-beam-probe technique. Externally applied resonant magnetic perturbations have been found to be effective in reducing, or even suppressing, edge-localized modes on fusion devices. Edge-localized modes (ELMs) are a threat to next-generation fusion devices as they may considerably shorten the lifespan of first-wall materials. The effect of resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) on fast-ion confinement needs to be investigated because a large amount of heating in next-generation fusion devices will be provided by the energetic alpha particle resulting from fusion reaction. The high-energetic alpha particles produced by fusion reaction need to be confined for a time long enough to allow them to lose all their energy to the main plasma species.
The light-ion-beam-probe technique exploits the ions produced by neutral beam injection (NBI) that are born in the plasma edge and are lost in the FILD within one poloidal bounce. The FILD detector developed in CNA is a scintillator-based magnetic spectrometer for fast ions. During my internship in Seville I started developing an algorithm to filter the unwanted contribution due to ELM activity from the FILD signal and I found clues that the fast-ion-orbit kick depends on the configuration of the RMPs.
Free time
Seville is a really beautiful city. It is served by a really efficient and well-maintained network of bike lanes. During my stay my main mean of transportation were my roller skates. By skating around the city I met a lot of people that shared this passion with me and, even if my Spanish is very poor, we hung out together and I got to see a lot of the city. This led me to a roller hockey team that I was able to join during my time in Seville. On one weekend I visited the beach near Huelva with the skating group. I also went to a hockey tournament in Chiclana de la Frontera and visited the surrounding area, including a really pretty village called Sancti Petri, with my teammates.
- Oscar Putignano