Dear Colleagues,

Please come to an important meeting on Friday, Feb. 9 at 10:30 am 
to be held in theory seminar room, where we will discuss the integration 
of fast ion physics research across PPPL and collaboration facilities 
including experiment and theory. 

For a long range view (say in the next 5 years) we need to  
plan on significant progress in the nonlinear physics of Alfven  
modes. In the past 5 years we have seen how linear theory has been  
extremely successful in explaining many observations, however we only  
have a primitive understanding of nonlinear phenomena and we have  
very little data on the key nonlinear physics. We need to discuss how  
we can make a strong progress in the theory and experiment in this  
area in the next 5 years with advanced theory and diagnostics. Please  
bring your good ideas and 1-2 viewgraphs for our discussion.

One particular issue we would like to discuss is on a potential venue to achieve
our goals, which is recent science team initiative.

The discussion should help us to propose a coordinated experimental
and modeling program on DIII-D and NSTX (where we have leadership
roles in this area) and possibly other devices to address these
issues.

Some questions for the discussion may be:

(i) How can we obtain precision mode amplitude measurements in NSTX  
similar to the mode radial profiles obtained on DIII-D?

(ii) Can we duplicate fast ion loss and confined fast ion  
measurements in DIII-D and NSTX? Can we use the same methods?

(iii) What would it take to perform fast ion "Tomography" in NSTX/ 
DIII-D, i.e., a high resolution reconstruction of the phase space  
distribution of fast ions.

(iv) Can we implement fast (1 microsec) time resolved loss/internal  
measurements of fast ions in DIII-D similar to systems on NSTX?

(iv) What modeling advances should be pursued? Is M3D capable of
simulating multimode interactions in 1-3 years (up to 10 unstable low-
n modes)? What physics is missing in these models that may be
important in estimating loss?

(v) Is there a possibility that full orbit effects (as opposed to  
guide center calculations) are essential in understanding the  
transport of fast ions in current devices even for low frequency  
(such ICF frequency) modes?




As for the science team initiative the following was proposed at 
FWP planning meeting in our area. 

Title: Multi-mode intstabilities effects on energetic particle
confinement and plasma performance

Scope of the work (~3 years)

1. Experimental study of multi-mode MHD instabilities in NSTX and
   their effects on (a) energetic particle (EP) confinement (b) EP
   transport (c) current drive.

2. Nonlinear M3D simulations of multi-mode instabilities and their
   saturation due to MHD nonlinearity and EP redistribution.  
Evaluation
   of NBI current drive and EP transport.

3. NOVA-ORBIT modeling of single and multi-mode instability effects on
   EP transport and current drive.

4. Quasilinear theory application to predict profiles of beam ions in
   NSTX.