Friedrich Wagner

Last updated
Friedrich Wagner
Born
Friedrich E. Wagner

(1943-11-16) November 16, 1943 (age 79)
NationalityGerman
Education Technical University of Munich (Ph.D.)
Known for H-mode in fusion plasmas
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Plasma physics
Thesis  (1972)
Website www.ipp.mpg.de/63699/wagner

Friedrich E. Wagner (born November 16, 1943, sometimes abbreviated as Fritz Wagner) is a German physicist and emeritus professor who specializes in plasma physics. He was known to have discovered the high-confinement mode (i.e. H-mode) of magnetic confinement in fusion plasmas while working at the ASDEX tokamak in 1982. [1] [2] For this discovery and his subsequent contributions to fusion research, was awarded the John Dawson Award in 1987, the Hannes Alfvén Prize in 2007 and the Stern–Gerlach Medal in 2009.

Contents

Life and career

Wagner was born in Pfaffenhofen an der Roth in Bavaria, Germany. He studied at the Technical University of Munich and completed his doctorate in 1972. He then worked at Ohio State University from 1973 to 1974. At first, he worked on low-temperature physics, but switched to plasma fusion research during the energy crisis of the time. In 1975, he started working for the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, and in 1986 he led the tokamak experiment ASDEX.

In 1988, Wagner habilitated at Heidelberg University and was given a teaching position there. He was then appointed honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich. From 1989 to 1993, Wagner was project manager of the Wendelstein 7-AS stellarator experiment.

In 1993, he became the director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and was Chairman of the Plasma Physics Department of the European Physical Society between 1996 and 2004. In 1999, he became full professor at the Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald. From 2003 to 2005, he was head of the Wendelstein 7-X experiment. He retired in 2008.

He was President of the European Physical Society between 2007 and 2009.

Honors and awards

Wagner is an honorary member of the Ioffe Institute at St. Petersburg and a fellow of the Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. [3] [4]

In 1987, Wagner was awarded the John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society. [5]

In 2007, he received the Hannes Alfvén Prize from the European Physical Society for his contributions to fusion research by magnetic confinement. [6]

In 2009, he received the Stern–Gerlach Medal, the highest honour for experimental physics awarded by the German Physical Society. [7] He was awarded in honor of his work in high-temperature plasma physics and fusion research, especially for the discovery of self-organizing transport barriers (i.e. H-mode), which was groundbreaking for the mastery of fusion plasmas. [8]

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plasma stability</span>

The stability of a plasma is an important consideration in the study of plasma physics. When a system containing a plasma is at equilibrium, it is possible for certain parts of the plasma to be disturbed by small perturbative forces acting on it. The stability of the system determines if the perturbations will grow, oscillate, or be damped out.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magnetic confinement fusion</span> Approach to controlled thermonuclear fusion using magnetic fields

Magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) is an approach to generate thermonuclear fusion power that uses magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel in the form of a plasma. Magnetic confinement is one of two major branches of controlled fusion research, along with inertial confinement fusion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ASDEX Upgrade</span>

ASDEX Upgrade is a divertor tokamak at the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Garching that went into operation in 1991. At present, it is Germany's second largest fusion experiment after stellarator Wendelstein 7-X.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tokamak à configuration variable</span> Swiss research fusion reactor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

The tokamak à configuration variable is an experimental tokamak located at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Swiss Plasma Center (SPC) in Lausanne, Switzerland. As the largest experimental facility of the Swiss Plasma Center, the TCV tokamak explores the physics of magnetic confinement fusion. It distinguishes itself from other tokamaks with its specialized plasma shaping capability, which can produce diverse plasma shapes without requiring hardware modifications.

An edge-localized mode (ELM) is a plasma instability occurring in the edge region of a tokamak plasma due to periodic relaxations of the edge transport barrier in high-confinement mode. Each ELM burst is associated with expulsion of particles and energy from the confined plasma into the scrape-off layer. This phenomenon was first observed in the ASDEX tokamak in 1981. Diamagnetic effects in the model equations expand the size of the parameter space in which solutions of repeated sawteeth can be recovered compared to a resistive MHD model. An ELM can expel up to 20 percent of the reactor's energy.

John Bryan Taylor is a British physicist known for his contributions to plasma physics and their application in the field of fusion energy. Notable among these is the development of the "Taylor state", describing a minimum-energy configuration that conserves magnetic helicity. Another development was his work on the ballooning transformation, which describes the motion of plasma in toroidal (donut) configurations, which are used in the fusion field. Taylor has also made contributions to the theory of the Earth's Dynamo, including the Taylor constraint.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COMPASS tokamak</span>

COMPASS, short for Compact Assembly, is a compact tokamak fusion energy device originally completed at the Culham Science Centre in 1989, upgraded in 1992, and operated until 2002. It was designed as a flexible research facility dedicated mostly to plasma physics studies in circular and D-shaped plasmas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sibylle Günter</span> German physicist

Sibylle Günter is a German theoretical physicist researching tokamak plasmas. Since February 2011, she has headed the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. In October 2015, she was elected a member of the Academia Europaea in recognition of her contribution to research.

High-confinement mode, or H-mode, is an operating regime possible in toroidal magnetic confinement fusion devices – mostly tokamaks, but also in stellarators. In this regime the plasma has a higher energy confinement time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tokamak sawtooth</span> Relaxation in the core of tokamak plasmas

A sawtooth is a relaxation that is commonly observed in the core of tokamak plasmas, first reported in 1974. The relaxations occur quasi-periodically and cause a sudden drop in the temperature and density in the center of the plasma. A soft-xray pinhole camera pointed toward the plasma core during sawtooth activity will produce a sawtooth-like signal. Sawteeth effectively limit the amplitude of the central current density. The Kadomtsev model of sawteeth is a classic example of magnetic reconnection. Other repeated relaxation oscillations occurring in tokamaks include the edge localized mode (ELM) which effectively limits the pressure gradient at the plasma edge and the fishbone instability which effectively limits the density and pressure of fast particles.

Hartmut Zohm is a German plasma physicist who is known for his work on the ASDEX Upgrade machine. He received the 2014 John Dawson Award and the 2016 Hannes Alfvén Prize for successfully demonstrating that neoclassical tearing modes in tokamaks can be stabilized by electron cyclotron resonance heating, which is an important design consideration for pushing the performance limit of the ITER.

Keith Howard Burrell is an American plasma physicist.

Kunioki Mima is a Japanese plasma physicist. He is known for his contributions to the theory of turbulent transport in plasmas, and in particular the derivation of the Hasegawa–Mima equation in 1977, which won him the 2011 Hannes Alfvén Prize.

Patrick Henry Diamond is an American theoretical plasma physicist. He is currently a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and a director of the Fusion Theory Institute at the National Fusion Research Institute in Daejeon, South Korea, where the KSTAR Tokamak is operated.

Patrick Mora is a French theoretical plasma physicist who specializes in laser-plasma interactions. He was awarded the 2014 Hannes Alfvén Prize and 2019 Edward Teller Award for his contributions to the field of laser-plasma physics.

Sergei Vladimirovich Bulanov, is a Russian physicist. He received the 1983 State Prize of the USSR, the 2016 Hannes Alfvén Prize for "contributions to the development of large-scale next-step devices in high-temperature plasma physics research", and the Order of Rising Sun with Gold Rays and Rosette in 2020.

Jürgen Nührenberg is a German plasma physicist.

Thomas W. L. "Tom" Sanford is an American plasma physicist who developed a multi-wire array for use in a pulsed Z-pinch plasma system which resulted in a breakthrough for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. In 2005, he was awarded the Hannes Alfvén Prize with Malcolm Haines and Valentin Smirnov for his contributions to the field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendelstein 7-AS</span> Stellarator for plasma fusion experiments (1988-2002)

Wendelstein 7-AS was an experimental stellarator which was in operation from 1988 to 2002 by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching. It was the first of a new class of advanced stellarators with modular coils, designed with the goal of developing a nuclear fusion reactor to generate electricity.

John 'Jack' Connor is a British theoretical physicist whose research focussed on understanding the physics of nuclear fusion.

References

  1. Wagner, F.; Becker, G.; Behringer, K.; Campbell, D.; Eberhagen, A.; Engelhardt, W.; Fussmann, G.; Gehre, O.; Gernhardt, J.; Gierke, G. v.; Haas, G. (1982). "Regime of Improved Confinement and High Beta in Neutral-Beam-Heated Divertor Discharges of the ASDEX Tokamak". Physical Review Letters. 49 (19): 1408–1412. Bibcode:1982PhRvL..49.1408W. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.1408. ISSN   0031-9007.
  2. "How Fritz Wagner 'discovered' the H-Mode". ITER. Archived from the original on 2020-04-19. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  3. "Prof. Dr. Friedrich Wagner". www.ipp.mpg.de. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  4. "APS Fellow Archive". American Physical Society. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  5. "1987 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research Recipient". American Physical Society. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  6. "Alfvén Prize | European Physical Society – Plasma Physics Division". European Physical Society. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  7. "Die Physik-Preisträger 2009". DPG. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
  8. Smith, Z E.; Wagner, S. (1987). "Band Tails, Entropy, and Equilibrium Defects in Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon". Physical Review Letters. 59 (15): 688–691. doi: 10.1103/physrevlett.59.1790.3 . ISSN   0031-9007. PMID   10035845.