About

We are an academic research group at a public research university with a focus on fast ion loss diagnostics for magnetically confined fusion plasmas.

Current Project

Our instrument, or diagnostic, will allow us to study fusion plasma instabilities. Our research will contribute to worldwide efforts in better understanding plasmas to control instabilities which can deteriorate fusion plasma performance. Plasma performance is a concern because stable plasmas are necessary to create commercially viable fusion energy.

Though we design, develop, and bench test our instrument at FIU, we have collected our data offsite at a research facility in England (the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak). We are currently analyzing data collected with our instrument to determine the time dependent charged fusion product profile. We are specifically observing products from nuclear fusion reactions between hydrogen isotopes, or deuterium-deuterium reactions. In general, we want to know when and where charged particles from these reactions, such as protons and tritons, are created inside of the plasma so that we can study how the plasma is affected by instabilities.

* Please visit our TWiki page for the Proton Detector: Page for MAST Diagnostic

FIU Group Members

ABOVE: Pierre Avila (FIU), Dr. Douglass Darrow (PPPL), Adrianna Angulo (FIU), RamonaValenzuelaPerez (FIU), Dr. Werner Boeglin (FIU), Omar Leon (FIU), Carlos Lopez (FIU) Click here to see more group member and collaborator photos

Principal Investigator (PI):

• Werner Boeglin (boeglinw@fiu.edu)

Graduate Student:

• Ramona V Perez (lc.ramona@gmail.com) my TWiki page

Undergraduate Students:

• Adrianna Angulo
• Carlos Lopez
• Doug Tuckler
• Javierra Latorre
• Omar Leon
• Pierre Avila

Past Undergraduate Students:

• Rahul Patel

High School Students:

• Aram Sargsian

Collaborators:

• Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) located in Princeton, New Jersey
  • Douglass Darrow (http://www.pppl.gov/people/douglass-s-darrow , http://pst.pppl.gov/person/doug_darrow.htm)
• Culham Science Centre, Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) located in Culham, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
• Uppsala University, Sweden
• Durham University, United Kingdom

Research Opportunities

Research Facilities:

• FIU Physics Laboratory CP185
• National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the PPPL http://nstx.pppl.gov/overview.html
• National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the PPPL (upgrade not yet completed)
• Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) at the CCFE http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/MAST.aspx
• Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade (MAST-U) at the CCFE (upgrade not yet completed)

Undergraduate Research:

• Independent Study credits
• Undergraduate Research Experience
• Read about what our undergraduate researchers are doing

Graduate Research:

• M.S. and Ph.D opportunities (speak with Dr. Werner Boeglin http://wanda.fiu.edu)
• Find out more about the FIU Graduate Physics Program http://physics.fiu.edu/graduate-program
• Read about what our graduate student is doing
• What kind of research experience can you gain working in FEPP?

Collaborators:

• Please send Dr. Boeglin an email

ABOVE: High Vacuum system for bench testing

Past Projects

3-D reconstruction of dust particle trajectories in the NSTX

• http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/rpatel/files/Rahul%20Patel%20McNair%20Poster.pdf
• http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/rpatel/files/sdarticle.pdf

The original Charged Fusion Products Diagnostic that would have been installed in NSTX (there was a premature shutdown of NSTX for its upgrade):

• NSTX Diagnostic

LEFT AND RIGHT: Images of 3D cad drawings for detector housing/ probe head with the ability to change detector orientations

-- RamonaValenzuelaPerez - 2013-11-15