Search

Plasma science is about to get a new online outlet. Aptly named Plasma, the cross-disciplinary scholarly journal will be a platform for all aspects of plasma science such as plasma physics, plasma chemistry and space plasma. Publication formats include research articles, reviews, short communications and letters.

The international, open-access and peer-reviewed scientific journal will be published quarterly by the Swiss online publisher MDPI. The first volume of the new journal is expected to come out in 2018.

David A. Gates, principal research physicist and Stellarator Physics Division Head at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), is the newly appointed editor-in-chief of the journal. Following his nomination Gates said: "I look forward to helping advance the international research arena in plasma science. This is an outstanding opportunity to help promote the research of a vital area of physics and to open the door to communicating that research to the global community."

Plasma is the fourth state of matter. It is a hot, electrically charged gas and the most abundant form of visible matter in the universe. Some 99 percent of the known universe is in plasma state. Plasma can also be found on Earth such as in lightning and fluorescent light bulbs.

Read more about the journal and its new editor-in-chief.

Representatives of the European Commission and delegates to the Council of the European Union responsible for science and research visited ITER on 20 November.

Their aim was to get first-hand information on the current status of the ITER Project to allow member states to respond to the Commission. Thirty-four delegates from 18 states plus Switzerland participated.

In a communication issued in June 2017, the Commission had requested support from the European Parliament and for a mandate from the Council of the European Union to approve—on behalf of Euratom—the new ITER Baseline, including the new schedule and the associated resource requirements.

The request was based on the Commission's positive assessment of the changes in the overall management of the ITER Project and the completion of important milestones in the preceding two years.

The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy (CCFE) in the United Kingdom, owned and operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), is home to two magnetic fusion experiments.

The European tokamak JET is currently getting ready for a run of experiments using the high-power fuel mixture of deuterium and tritium (DT), while the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) is nearing the end of an upgrade program (completion 2018) to investigate the super-X divertor—a magnetic configuration that spreads the heat loads at the divertor area of the machine.

MAST is about to undergo a baking operation in order to clean the interior surfaces of the vessel and enable the ultra-high vacuum required for operation. In this picture, the machine has been fitted with a thermal jacket, ready for baking at 160 °C.

Read more about the operation on the CCFE website.