Summer Course Detailed Programme

Sessions and Contents 2025

Sunday, 13 July

Arrivals

16:00 - Team-building activities.

19:00 - Cheese & wine courtesy party.

21:00 - Invited lecture: "Surfing big waves - how waves developed", by Horácio Fernandes.

The lecture starts with a mini-course on oceanography aimed at the physics of ocean waves, wave prediction and quantifying the quality of a beach for surfing. It will end up with the importance of preserving coastal environment for surfing. Pedro Bicudo is a physics professor at IST and is main research activity is on studying quark confinement in Lattice QCD and on applying chiral symmetry breaking in quark models. He is a surfer enthusiast, an activist for saving waves endangered by see walls or jetties and a researcher in artificial reefs for surfing.

Monday, 14 July

09:00 - Introdution to plasma physics, by Vasco Guerra:

  • Definition of plasma
  • Occurrence of plasmas in Nature; plasmas in the lab; plasmas at home
  • Range of plasma parameters
  • World energy consumption and global warming; advantages of nuclear fusion energy
  • Confinement processes

10:30 - Break

10:45 - Introduction to plasma physics (cont.):

  • Single particle motions; drifts in E and B fields
  • Plasma oscillations and plasma waves
  • Particle transport in weakly and fully ionized plasmas
  • Kinetic description
  • Plasma applications: innovative technologies (clean energy, environment protection and remediation, biomedicine, nanomaterials, etc.)

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Computational physics, by Thales da Silva:

  • Challenges in plasma modelling and the hierarchy of plasma models -
  • Massivelly parallel computing and plasma physics
  • The particle-in-cell model: from kinetics to hybrid models
  • Case studies: from the laboratory to astrophysics:
  • (a) plasma based accelerators;
    (b) collisionless shocks;
    (c) relativistic astrophysics.

15:00 – Adjourn

15:30 - Outdoor activities

19:45 - Dinner

 

Tuesday, 15 July

09:00 - Topics in magnetic nuclear fusion, by António Figueiredo:

  • Why fusion?
  • The tokamak
  • Equilibrium
  • Transport of particles and energy
  • Instabilities
  • Outstanding issues

10:30 - Break

10:45 – Introduction to inertial confinement fusion, by Frederico Fiúza:

  • The landscape and status of inertial fusion energy
  • Basics of inertial confinement fusion
  • Advanced inertial confinement fusion concepts

12:00 – Lunch

13:30 – Plasmas Diagnostics, by Carlos Silva

15:00 – Adjourn

15:30 - Outdoor activities

19:45 - Dinner

 

Wednesday, 16 July

09:00 - Kinetic and magneto-hydrodynamic description of a plasma, by Paulo Rodrigues:

  • Distribution function and its moments
  • From the Vlasov equation to the fluid equations
  • MHD description of a plasma
  • Electron plasma waves and Landau damping

10:30 - Break

10:45 – Plasmas in space, by Mário Lino da Silva:

  • Context: Space plasmas and plasmas for Space exploration
  • Plasmas in Space
  • Plasmas for Space Propulsion
  • Atmospheric Entry Plasmas

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Introduction to Python, by Rui Coelho:

  • Basic features
  • NumPy
  • matplotlib
  • SciPy

15:00 – Adjourn

15:30 - Outdoor activities

19:45 - Dinner

 

Thursday, 17 July

09:00 - Plasma technologies for material processing, by Tiago Silva:

  • Introduction. Low-temperature plasmas. Technological applications
  • Gas discharges:
  • (a) Breakdown;
    (b) Townsend discharges and Paschen's law;
    (c) Sheaths.

10:30 – Break

10:45 – Plasma technologies for material processing (cont.)

Plasma reactors:

(a) General scheme: vacuum system, injection system, power system, cooling system;
(b) Classification: capacitive radio-frequency reactors, high-density reactors, DC discharges.

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Practical class, by Rafael Russo de Almeida:

  • Plasma state context
  • Waves in plasmas
  • Plasma sources

15:00 – Adjourn

15:30 - Outdoor activities

19:45 - Dinner

 

Friday, 18 July

09:00 - The ITER project challenges and the JET contribution, by Bruno Gonçalves:

  • Tokamak engineering
  • JET contribution for scenario development
  • Plasma wall interaction and Materials
  • ITER challenges (heating, diagnostics and materials)
  • The way to fusion electricity

10:30 – Break

10:45 – Lasers and laser-plasma interaction, by Hugo Pires:

  • Lasers
  • High power lasers
  • Laser-plasma interaction and applications

12:00 - Lunch

13:30 - Data analysis, by Mário Vaz:

  • Analysis of the I-V Langmuir probe characteristics for different plasma conditions
  • Assess the validity of the probe measurements
  • Spectral analysis and peak detection

15:00 – Closing session

16:00 - Visiting IST, university (Tokamak, ISTTOK)

20:00 - Dinner OUT (Lisbon)

Saturday, 19 July

10:30 - Summary of achievements, Horácio Fernandes/Mário Vaz

  • Conclusion of feX: Plasmas
  • Presentation of data analysis by each group

13:00 – Closing session