Non-Thermal Fusion Burning Plasma Regimes

The Ignitor project is aimed at approaching ignition conditions in Deuterium-Tritium plasmas in order to investigate the issues related to the kind of characteristics of these plasmas, following the line of compact high field opened with the Alcator and Frascati Torus programs, which were capable of producing high density plasma regimes with record confinement properties combined with high degrees of plasma purity. We present a theoretical model describing the emergence of tridimensional structures in magnetically confined plasmas which can significantly change the conditions under which meaningful fusion burn conditions can be reached. These structures can be said to consist of "captive ballooning modes", that, being localized along the radial direction, do not propagate their energy outside the plasma column. (work in cooperation with B.Coppi , B.Basu, A.Cardinali under IGNITOR project)