2024 US-EU Transport Taskforce Workshop

Developing a comprehensive scientific understanding of transport processes in magnetically confined fusion plasmas is essential to accurately predicting the energy confinement and optimizing the resulting performance of fusion burning plasmas, and thus to the development of fusion energy as a practical, economical, and virtually emissions-free energy source. To aid and accelerate this challenging scientific endeavor, the US Transport Task Force (TTF) has held an annual workshop since 1989, and since 1995 has biannually held the workshop jointly with EU researchers. These workshops have enabled dissemination of current research, provided for ample discussion of critical results, and helped to identify areas for enhanced future scientific activities. This proposal seeks to obtain support for the 2024 US-EU Transport Task Force, which is being hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and will be held in Asheville, North Carolina on April 9-12, 2024; detailed workshop information can be found at: https://conferences.union.wisc.edu/ttf/ . This financial support will provide for audio-visual equipment rental, posterboard rental, website, abstract submission, and conference organization and management. It will also help defray registration costs for the workshop and enable more students and young scientists to attend by maintaining reasonable and low-cost registration fees. The conference typically attracts approximately 100 or more attendees, about 25% of whom are typically graduate students.

The goal of the TTF is to develop a physics-based understanding of particle, momentum, and heat transport in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. This includes the development of predictive models of plasma transport that can be validated against experimental measurements of turbulence, transport, and confinement, and then used to simulate the performance of future burning plasmas. These goals must be pursued in multiple research topics, and the TTF workshop focus topics evolve to reflect emerging advances in physics understanding. The TTF Executive Committee organizes the conference, decides on major topical themes for each workshop, and selects submissions for plenary and oral presentations. The TTF Executive Committee consists of about 14 members from universities, national laboratories, and companies that are engaged in plasma physics and fusion energy research. The PI for this proposal is the current Chair of TTF, and the current Vice Chair will become the new Chair after the 2024 US-EU TTF workshop. The topics that have been selected for enhanced priority and attention at this year's TTF Workshop include:

• • Burning Plasma and Isotope Physics

• • Stellarator and 3D Field Transport Properties

• • Low-Aspect Ratio Turbulence and Transport Properties

• • Core-Edge Interactions

• • New Capabilities: Advanced Measurements, Analysis and Simulation

• • Fundamental Turbulent Transport Dynamics in Magnetized Plasmas

The agenda for plenary and oral presentations will be selected by the Executive Committee from the submitted abstracts. In addition to the high priority topics, the TTF welcomes submissions on standing topics such as Core Turbulence and Transport; Energetic Ions, Runaway Electrons and Alfven Eigenmode Physics; Pedestal Turbulence and Instabilities; and Scrape-Off-Layer and Divertor flows, turbulence, and heat flux. Poster presentations will also be provided on all the identified topics. A summary of the workshop will be prepared after its completion and submitted to the Department of Energy.