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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
L. Zang, T. Mizuuchi, N. Nishino, S. Ohshima, S. Yamamoto, Y. C. Sun, K. Kasajima, M. Takeuchi, K. Mukai, H. Y. Lee, N. Kenmochi, Y. Ohtani, K. Nagasaki, S. Kado, H. Okada, T. Minami, S. Kobayashi, N. Shi, S. Konoshima, Y. Nakamura, F. Sano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 4 | November 2015 | Pages 758-765
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-862
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the medium-sized heliotron device Heliotron J, edge density fluctuation has been measured simultaneously with a high-speed video camera and a Langmuir probe. Poloidally propagating, parallel elongating filamentary structures with 20- to 30-kHz frequency and ~14-cm poloidal wavelength were observed by a camera. However, the radial position of this density mode is not well known with only camera data because the camera lens axis is perpendicular to the torus plane. To identify the span of this density mode, plasma-surface interaction (PSI) between the probe and the plasma has been analyzed. As the probe scanned into the plasma, enhanced brightness due to PSI was clearly observed in camera images. By comparing this enhanced brightness among different probe positions, the outmost margin of the 20- to 30-kHz mode observed by the camera has been identified to be within 10 mm outside from the last closed flux surface. This conclusion is supported by the spectrum of the probe data.