Purpose

To identify possible experimental approaches that would permit exploration of the science of burning plasmas to begin near the end of this decade.

Scope

The Workshop will explore various experimental opportunities for pursing the science of burning plasmas and, for each approach, its capability to explore the scientific issues of burning plasmas identified in the first Burning Plasma Science Workshop. The workshop will also seek to identify technological opportunities which could measurably improve the performance, reliability or operational flexibility of burning plasma experiments.

For this Workshop, a boundary condition is imposed limiting approaches to those that could be put into operation within about ten years. If sufficient interest warrants, a future workshop could look beyond the ten-year time frame or at "low-cost/high-risk" concepts.

In addition to identifying promising approaches, an important objective is to identify key scientific and technical issues related to the projected performance of each approach. Specifically:

1. How will particle and power exhaust be handled? How well will proposed components withstand the effects of plasma disruptions and other related "off-normal" operational events?
2. What types of heating and current drive are planned and what are the prospects for investigating "steady-state" plasma operation on the relevant plasma time scales?
3. What is the transport or confinement basis and MHD stability basis for reaching the burning regime and what are the uncertainties in reaching the projected operating regimes? How much margin exists for physics or hardware performance contingencies?
4. What physics program is envisioned and how will the burning plasma scientific issues be addressed? Will planned diagnostic capabilities be commensurate with science program needs? Will the pulse rate and number and lifetime and provisions for the supply of tritium and maintenance, replacement and/or upgrade of activated components be commensurate with the proposed science program?
5. What operational and/or hardware flexibility is incorporated into the design? What capability exists for studying burning plasma AT ("advanced tokamak") regimes? What are the scientific and technology issues involved in such "advanced" operation and how will they be addressed?

Format

The Workshop will follow the format used successfully in Snowmass and the first Burning Plasma Science Workshop, namely a combination of plenary and breakout sessions. The plenary sessions will be devoted to discussions of both generic science-to-technology requirements and integrated concept descriptions and capabilities, while the breakout sessions will primarily address the questions posed above for concepts and "generic" technologies identified in the plenary sessions. Those interested in presenting plenary or breakout session talks should send abstracts to the Workshop Organizing Committee Chair, Ron Parker (parkerpsfc.mit.edu) and to John Wesley (wesleyfusion.gat.com) by 23 March 2001. The Organizing Committee anticipates that specific plenary and breakout session topics and chairpersons will be identified shortly.