Fusion Plasma Physics

Nuclear fusion has the potential to become the most important energy source of the new century. But still many problems, as e.g. the confinement of the plasma, are not yet solved. Thus they are subject to intense research which drives a rapid evolvement of this field of nuclear physics, and generates the need for an up-to-date textbook for graduate students.
This state-of-the-art textbook assembles the material for a modern course, and is aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students. It both introduces the fundamental principles and theories of fusion plasma physics, and presents the most recent topics from various sources in a systematic and concise way. Each chapter is rounded off with a set of exercises.

Professor Weston Stacey received his PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1966. He then worked in naval reactor design at Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory and led the fast reactor theory and computations and the fusion research programs at Argonne National Laboratory. In 1977, he became Callaway Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he has been teaching and performing research in reactor physics and plasma physics. He is the author of six books and about 250 research papers. He led the international INTOR Workshop which defined the design features and R&D needs for the first fusion experimental reactor, for which he received the US Dept. of Energy Distinguished Associate Award. Professor Stacey is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and of the American Physical Society and is the recipient of, among other awards, the Seaborg Award for Nuclear Research and the Wigner Reactor Physics Award from the American Nuclear Society.

1. Basic Physics.

2. Motion of Charged Particles.

3. Magnetic Confinement.

4. Kinetic Theory.

5. Fluid Theory.

6. Plasma Equilibria.

7. Waves.

8. Instabilities.

9. Neoclassical Transport.

10. Plasma Rotation.

11. Turbulent Transport.

12. Heating and Current Drive.

13. Plasma-Material Interactions.

14. Divertors.

15. Plasma Edge.

16. Neutral Particle Transport.

17. Power Balance.

18. Operational Limits.

19. Fusion Reactors and Neutron Sources.

Appendix A: Frequently Used Physical Constants.

Appendix B: Dimensions and Units.

Appendix C: Vector Calculus.

Appendix D: Curvilinear Coordinates.

Appendix E: Plasma Formulas.

Appendix F: Further Reading.

Appendix G: Attributions.

Subject Index.