This is a technical paper concerning the design and commissioning of a gamma ray camera on the DIII-D tokamak. The diagnostic, the Gamma Ray Imager (GRI), is a pinhole camera constructed of lead. This diagnostic is being used to study the behavior of relativistic electron beams in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. Gamma rays can be […]
Exponential Frequency Spectrum and Lorentzian Pulses in Magnetized Plasmas
Sections Details and Download Previous Work Modeling Lorentzian Pulses What is the Relevance? This is a review of a paper recently published by my group. Here, the paper is paraphrased to reach a wider audience. The plasma physics community can read the original publication, so my goal is to provide an example of current plasma […]
Keeping Fusion Plasmas Hot
The following article first appeared as David C. Pace, William W. Heidbrink, and Michael A. Van Zeeland, “Keeping Fusion Plasmas Hot,” Physics Today 68, 34 (2015). In the article, we discuss interactions between high energy ions and electromagnetic waves in magnetically confined plasmas. These plasmas are produced in nuclear fusion reactors known as tokamaks. My research […]
Example of Langmuir Probe Analysis
Sections Processing the Raw Data Determining Electron Temperature and Plasma Potential Calculating Electron Density An Additional Concern for Temperature Analysis Sample Data for Practice This is a simple example of Langmuir probe analysis and the issues related to it. It is intended to serve as a helpful reminder of the technical details in analyzing the […]
Thesis – Chapter 1: Introduction
Thesis – Table of Contents Introduction 1.1 Motivation Anomalous transport is an area of great interest within the plasma physics research community. The field of magnetically confined thermonuclear fusion may benefit significantly from an improved understanding of this topic. It has already been shown that turbulent fluctuations increase the transport of mass and energy [Horton, […]
Ph.D. Thesis Project: Thermal Waves and Turbulent Structures in Magnetized Plasmas
I completed my Ph.D. thesis in 2009. Copies of it are available in both PDF and HTML format. The PDF is the source for the printed copies that were turned in to the UCLA Library as part of the requirements for completion. The web version omits the front matter but does present every chapter and […]