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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
A. Reiman, S. Hirshman, S. Hudson, D. Monticello, P. Rutherford, A. Boozer, A. Brooks, R. Hatcher, L. Ku, E. A. Lazarus, H. Neilson, D. Strickler, R. White, M. Zarnstorff
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 2 | February 2007 | Pages 145-165
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1296
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Equilibrium issues encountered in the design of the National Compact Stellarator Experiment (NCSX) are discussed, focusing particularly on equilibrium magnetic islands. Significant improvements have been made to the VMEC equilibrium code to deal with numerical challenges at the low aspect ratios characterizing the NCSX design. Modifications to the PIES code have increased its speed, allowing routine evaluation of flux surfaces for candidate configurations. An optimizer has been built around the PIES code for healing magnetic islands, modifying the coil shapes to suppress resonant components of the magnetic field while preserving desired physics and engineering properties. The modified coils produce improved flux surface quality for a range of configurations. Neoclassical effects, which are not included in the PIES calculations, are estimated using a cylindrical model and are found to further reduce island widths significantly.