Second Announcement

The 9th IAEA Technical Meeting on H-mode Physics and Transport Barriers will be held at the Catamaran Resort in San Diego, California, USA from Wednesday, 24 September 2003 to Friday, 26 September 2003.

Purpose: The purpose of the meeting is to present and discuss the status of H-mode and internal transport barrier experiments, theory and modeling in magnetic fusion research and to discuss scientific solutions of H-mode control for the purpose of exploring possibilities of enhanced operating regimes in next step large fusion devices.

Format of Meeting: The meeting will be organized around six broad topics of current interest. An overview talk, accompanied by discussion, will be presented for each topic. Each talk will be followed by a poster session of contributed papers, related to the topic. Written versions of the contributed papers will be accepted at the meeting. However, written papers are not required. Written papers, which meet the referees' approval and appropriate length requirements, will be published in a special issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.

Call for Papers: To achieve the purpose of the meeting, the international and local program committees solicit contributed papers that present and discuss recent experimental, theoretical or modeling studies of transport barriers, both internal and edge, as observed in numerous magnetic confinement machines and in a variety of magnetic topologies. These papers should be targeted toward one of the following six topics:

Conference Topics

A. “Structure and dynamics of internal transport barriers”
- Physics mechanisms which trigger internal transport barriers
- Role of transport and stability in spatial structure of internal transport barriers
- Similarities and differences between machines and magnetic geometries
- Ion and electron barriers and the similarities and differences between them

B. “Structure and dynamics of the H-mode pedestal”
- Studies, integrating stability and transport, to discuss what we know about the physics which determines the pedestal structure
- Similarities and differences between machines
- ELM models and comparison to experiment
- ELM-free or small ELM regimes, such as EDA, QH-mode and Type II

C. “Understanding transport barriers through modeling”
- Modeling of core and edge barriers
- Comparison of models with experiment.
- Ways in which modeling has advanced our physics understanding
of barriers
- Development of transport barrier models for burning plasma devices, particularly ITER

D. “Control of transport barriers”
- Empirical methods that have been used to control barriers (edge and core)
- Comparison of control techniques as used on various machines and in different magnetic geometries.
- Hybrid operating modes, providing long pulse operation, on the
various machines.
- Relevance of different control strategies to ITER and other burning
plasma machines

E. “Transport within transport barriers: theorist's view of the future”
- Theoretical studies of transport within transport barriers
- Assessment of theory work which must be done to advance our
knowledge of transport in core and edge barriers
- Theory of important physics elements:
- Turbulence saturation mechanisms in barriers
- Zonal flows and geodesic acoustic modes
- Differences between mechanisms for setting particle vs temperature gradients
- Competition between transport and small scale MHD, such as QC
and EHO modes

F. “Diagnostic and analysis issues for transport barriers”
- Measurement needs for barriers (core and edge)
- Recent advances in diagnostics or data analysis
- Needs for diagnostic and analysis improvements to advance
barrier studies
- Needs for ITER and other next step devices
- Possibly coupled to the issue of control

Actions for interested persons: Persons who are interested in participating in the meeting should carefully read this announcement or the conference web site to obtain further details about important dates and actions which must be performed in order to attend the meeting. Interested persons are asked to submit an expression of interest form at their earliest convenience. Other important actions include pre-registration, submittal of abstracts, submittal of IAEA forms to the appropriate governmental agencies and completing reservations at the conference hotel to obtain the
conference rate.

Following is the information on our various links:

IAEA Participation Form

(a) Be received by the IAEA by 31 May, 2003;
(b) Be accompanied by a duly completed and signed Participation Form (pages 1 and 2) including the 200 to 400-word abstract of the paper to be presented. Applications that do not comply with the conditions mentioned under (a) and (b) cannot be considered. Awards will be announced around 1 August, 2003. For advance notice, please address inquiries to Ryszard Miklaszewski, IAEA Organizer, PO Box 100, Wagramer Str. 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria, e-mail: r.a.miklaszewski@iaea.org

Preparation of Papers

Posters
Due to the limited time for the invited talks and discussion periods, all contributed papers will be presented in poster sessions. The poster sessions will be grouped according to the workshop topics and will immediately follow the invited talk and discussion session pertaining to that topic. The poster board size will be 4x6 feet (1.2x1.8 meters). It is hoped that all poster presentations (for all 6 workshop topics) will be placed on display on the first morning of the workshop (Wednesday morning, 24 September) and will then remain on the poster boards for the duration of the workshop (until the end of Friday afternoon, 26 September). This will then allow ample time for discussions on the poster presentations by the participants throughout the workshop. This option will depend on the total number of poster presentations submitted.

Written papers
Invited and contributed papers at the conference will be published in a Special issue of Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. (Note that a written paper is not required for presentation of a poster or participation in the workshop). The instructions for paper submission are the same as for a regular paper to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, and should therefore adhere to the high standard that would normally apply for submission of a regular paper (refer to "How to Submit to this Journal" in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. http://www.iop.org/Journals/pp/submit for details). However, the papers should not be submitted directly to the journal, but instead are to be submitted at the registration desk during the reception to be held on the evening of Tuesday, 23 September or on the first morning of the workshop. Authors are encouraged to prepare papers according to templates which will be provided at a later date. The papers will then be reviewed by referees (chosen from the workshop participants) for suitability for inclusion in PPCF.

Note the following points:

1. The page limit for the invited (contributed) papers is 15 (6) pages.
2. The deadline for submission is 24th September 2003 (1st day of workshop).
3. Submit the papers at the conference desk (Do not submit the paper directly to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion).
4. Submit 3 paper copies of the paper at the conference desk
   (Do not submit electronic copies

Accommodation

A special discounted conference rate has been arranged with the Catamaran Resort which can be found at: www.catamaranresort/h-m0923.html

Participants are strongly advised to make their reservations as soon as possible as there are a limited number of rooms at the special rate and also because September is a busy period for San Diego.

Venue and Social Events

The meeting will be held in the conference rooms of the Catamaran Resort Hotel. The Catamaran is located directly on Mission Bay in San Diego and is only one block from the Pacific Ocean. The resort has a tropical theme. All the facilities are self-contained allowing for ample space and time for discussions between the participants. Further details on the resort can be obtained from: www.catamaranresort.com. Detailed information on the special accommodation rate for the conference can be obtained from: www.catamaranresort/h-m0923.html

Social Events

Welcome reception and registration
There will be a reception at the Catamaran Resort on the evening of Tuesday, 23 September, 2003 to welcome all participants to the conference. A conference desk will also be available at the reception for submission of written manuscripts for the invited and contributed papers.

Conference Dinner
The conference dinner will be held on the “William D. Evans” which is a sternwheel paddle boat styled on the Mississippi paddle boats of the 1860’s. The “William D. Evans” will cruise around Mission Bay during the course of the dinner and guests are invited to stroll the decks of the boat during the cruise.

The conference dinner will be held on the evening of Thursday, 25 September, 2003. Details and time will be posted here later.

Program Committee

International Scientific Program Committee

R. Groebner (Chair, GA, U.S.A)

M. Greenwald (MIT, USA)

K. Ida (NIFS, Japan)

S. Lebedev (Ioffe, Russian Federation)

G. Saibene (EFDA, Germany)

W. Suttrop (IPP, Germany)

E. Synakowski (PPPL, U.S.A)

T. Takizuka (JAERI, Japan)