Columbia, Max Planck Team Up on Fusion Energy Science

The new Max Planck Columbia Center will have a total budget of $13.3 million over its five-year term

The new Max Planck Columbia Center "Optimizing Symmetry in Fusion Plasmas" will have a total budget of $13.3 million over its five-year term and is scheduled to begin its work in 2027. The center will be co-directed by Thomas Klinger, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, and Carlos Paz-Soldan, Associate Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia Engineering and Director of the Columbia Fusion Research Center.

Thomas Klinger said: "The Max Planck Columbia Center will bring together two leading institutions in plasma physics and fusion research. We aim to combine the strengths of tokamaks and stellarators to address key scientific and technological questions on the path toward a fusion power plant. It is particularly important to me that early-career researchers gain international experience at a world-class university and build lasting scientific networks from an early stage in their careers."

Carlos Paz-Soldan said: "I'm delighted to see the partnership between Columbia Engineering and the Max Planck Society grow and deepen. The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics is a pre-eminent group in the field and operates world-leading fusion facilities. In partnership, we will be able to provide unique opportunities both to develop the fusion workforce and to advance key open scientific questions on the path to fusion energy."

The center is one of seven new Max Planck Centers that the Max Planck Society (MPG) will establish this year. These virtual centers are a key element of MPG's internationalization strategy. They are not physical institutions, but virtual centers of excellence which will enable Max Planck researchers to collaborate with outstanding international partners and advance knowledge in forward-looking fields of research. Max Planck Centers are initially established for five years, with the option of a one-time extension.

A central component of the center will be the exchange of early-career researchers, from students and doctoral candidates to postdoctoral researchers. Depending on the needs of the joint projects, participants may spend up to one year at the partner institution in Greifswald, Garching, or New York City.

The collaboration will also benefit from access to IPP's two main experimental facilities: the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator in Greifswald and the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak in Garching. Columbia University researchers will automatically receive team-member status at both facilities and will be able to participate in experiments.

Columbia University will also establish a fixed-term assistant professor position. The appointment will be for two years and be filled twice during the Center's five-year term. The position is intended for leading researchers and will include both teaching and research.

The center also provides opportunities to partner with a network of affiliate members from the private sector who are leading the charge to develop the next generation of fusion demonstration facilities. Scientists from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Proxima Fusion, Thea Energy, Type One Energy, and potentially others, will be invited to join the working groups and contribute ideas and elaborated use cases to apply newly-gained understanding.

The scientific program of the new center is divided into six work packages, each led by one coordinator from IPP and one from Columbia. Together, they will manage the collaboration within their respective research areas.

The six major work packages are:

1. Stellarator Power Exhaust: This work addresses the still partly unresolved challenge of power and particle exhaust in optimized stellarators. Novel transport and turbulence codes will be developed, improved, benchmarked, and validated against experimental data. The goal is to establish quantitative predictive capabilities.
2. Hybrid Tokamak-Stellarators: This work package aims to develop a hybrid concept combining features of stellarators and tokamaks. Researchers will seek a compact and stable magnetic configuration with excellent plasma confinement properties.
3. Simulation of Transients: Researchers will investigate plasma transients in tokamaks and stellarators using computer simulations. Such major events break the symmetry of the plasma and lead to an abrupt loss of thermal energy and, ultimately, the generation of fast particles. Both effects can endanger plasma-facing components.
4. Non-Planar Superconducting Magnets: This work package focuses on the engineering development of high- and low-temperature superconducting magnets. Researchers aim to improve the understanding of quench behavior-the physical phenomena that occur during the transition from the superconducting to the normal-conducting state-and to investigate the stresses and strains that arise in non-planar magnets.
5. Energetic Particles in Stellarators: The aim is to improve the understanding of interactions between energetic particles and Alfvénic modes. Researchers will also consider novel aspects of their coupling to plasma microturbulence. Alfvénic modes are characteristic oscillations in a magnetized plasma in which the plasma and magnetic field move in a coupled manner.
6. Edge Stability of Tokamaks: Researchers will conduct coordinated experiments and perform multi-machine modeling of large edge instabilities in tokamaks. Particular emphasis will be placed on quasi-continuous exhaust and plasmas with negative triangularity.

The center's total funding comprises $7.5 million from U.S. sources and €5 million from IPP. The funding will cover personnel costs, workshops, research project coordination, and the travel and living expenses associated with researcher exchanges. IPP will benefit directly from the additional staffing capacity contributed by Columbia University and from new opportunities to recruit highly qualified researchers.

Funding will be provided by:

• The Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics
• Simons Foundation International administered by the Simons Foundation
• The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (DOE-FES)
• Columbia University