Search  

Profile

David Richards Theory center deputy pursues lattice QCD research

As a young man, David Richards thought he was headed for a career in mathematics. The Wallingford, England, native excelled in the subject throughout his schooling and headed off to Cambridge intent on that degree. But, working in an accounting office in the days when accounting was done with, as he puts it, "bits of paper and double-entry account keeping," disabused him of the notion of that application of math.

"It was," he noted, "very boring."

Full Story

Feature

PPPL LogoFusion diagnostic sheds light on plasma behavior at EAST

An instrument developed by researchers at DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has enabled a research team at a fusion energy experiment in China to observe--in startling detail—how a particular type of electromagnetic wave known as a radiofrequency (RF) wave affects the behavior of hot ionized gas.

In the experiment at EAST (the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak located at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei, China), scientists employed a high-resolution, X-ray imaging crystal spectrometer (XICS) to observe how an RF wave changed the way a hot ionized gas known as a plasma moved in a vacuum vessel. Radiofrequency waves are similar to microwaves and are used to heat and drive current in plasma.

Full Story

See also…

DOE Pulse
  • Number 345  |
  • September 5, 2011