Meetings/Workshops on Plasma and Gas-discharge Physics, Nuclear Fusion in the United States (USA)

The LAPD19 Symposium is the continuation of a biennial series that began at Kyushu University in 1983. It brings together physicists and chemists in diverse areas of laser-based plasma diagnostics including the physics of nuclear fusion, laser physics and low-temperature plasma chemistry and physics. The symposium aims to promote cross-pollination of these fields via fruitful discussion, and covers all diagnostics using electromagnetic waves (lasers and microwaves) applied to fusion plasmas, industrial process plasmas, environmental plasmas, plasmas for medical applications, atmospheric plasmas, plasmas in liquids and other plasma applications. Topics on hardware developments related to laser-aided plasma diagnostics are also welcome. Instrumentation developments related to laser-aided plasma diagnostics also received emphasis in the program.

Atomic and Molecular Physics,    Metrology and Instrumentation

University of Wisconsin-Madison

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

This conference continues the series of meetings on lithium and liquid metal applications in fusion devices previously organized in Japan, USA, Italy, Spain, and Russia. This year we have broadened the scope to include liquid metals, loop systems, safety and handling. The peer review journal, Fusion Engineering and Design, will have a special issue dedicated to ISLA-2019 in which participants will have the opportunity to publish papers based on their presentations.

ICFRM is the premier international forum connecting specialists studying and developing materials for fusion energy systems. Central themes are the sharing of new insights, cutting-edge research, and materials science technologies for the realization of fusion energy. The conference consists of daily overview plenary lectures, invited and contributed oral presentations, and a series of technical poster sessions. In addition, there are several hosted satellite meetings, a pre-conference technical tutorial, and stimulating discussions.

American Physical Society

Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP)

A fascinating and surprising phenomenon that can occur in fluid and plasma turbulence is the spontaneous formation of arrays of layers in which material properties such as density adopt a so-called “staircase” structure. The most striking examples are potential vorticity staircases in planetary atmospheres, and thermohaline staircases in the oceans. Theoretical considerations suggest that layering also plays an important role in stellar interiors (particularly through various double-diffusive processes) and in fusion confinement devices (the so-called E x B staircase). Understanding the phenomenon of layering is, therefore, not only of intrinsic scientific interest (e.g., is there a common thread to layering in these very different contexts?), but is also crucial for an accurate description of turbulent transport in, for example, models of large-scale ocean flow, the evolution of stellar interiors and confinement in tokamaks.

Thermodynamics, Fluid Dynamics and Statistical Physics,    Mathematical Physics