PlasmaSurf Summer CourseWhere Physics and Summer meet

Sunday, 14 July

Arrivals

16:00 - Team-building activities.

19:00 - Cheese & wine courtesy party.

21:00 - Invited lecture: "Surfing big waves - how waves developed", by Pedro Bicudo.

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, 15 July

09:30 - Introduction 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

11:00 - Break

11:15 - 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.)

12:30 - Lunch

14:00 - 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.

15:30 – Adjourn

16:00 - Outdoor activities

20:00 - Dinner

Tuesday, 16 July

09:30 - Topics in magnetic nuclear fusion, by António Figueiredo:

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

11:00 - Break

11:15 – 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

12:30 – Lunch

14:00 – Plasmas Diagnostics, by Carlos Silva

15:30 – Adjourn

16:00 - Outdoor activities

20:00 - Dinner

Wednesday, 17 July

09:30 - 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

11:00 - Break

11:15 – 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

12:30 - Lunch

14:00 - Python for Data Analysis, by Rui Coelho:

• Basic features
• NumPy
• matplotlib
• SciPy

15:30 – Adjourn

16:00 - Outdoor activities

20:00 - Dinner

Thursday, 18 July

09:30 - Plasma technologies for material processing, by Pedro Viegas:

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

11:00 – Break

11:15 – 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.

12:30 - Lunch

14:00 - Practical class, by Rafael Russo:

• Plasma state context
• Waves in plasmas
• Plasma sources

15:30 – Adjourn

16:00 - Outdoor activities

20:00 - Dinner

Friday, 19 July

09:30 - 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

11:00 – Break

11:15 – Lasers and laser-plasma interaction, by Hugo Pires:

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

12:30 - Lunch

14:00 - Data analysis, by Horácio Fernandes:

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

15:30 – Adjourn

16:00 - Visiting IST university (Tokamak ISTTOK)

20:00 - Dinner OUT in Lisbon

Saturday, 20 July

10:30 - Summary of achievements, Horácio Fernandes

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

13:00 – Closing session