Publications by Patrick Blanchard

Experimental Observation of the Motion of Ions in a Resonantly Driven Plasma Wakefield Accelerator

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Yanis Andrebe, Riccardo Agnello, Christine Stollberg

We show experimentally that an effect of motion of ions, observed in a plasma-based accelerator, depends inversely on the plasma ion mass. The effect appears within a single wakefield event and manifests itself as a bunch tail, occurring only when sufficie ...

2025

Effect of energetic ions on edge-localized modes in tokamak plasmas

Patrick Blanchard, Timothy Goodman, Jean-Marc Moret, Olivier Sauter, Holger Reimerdes, Stefano Coda, Alexander Karpushov, Yanis Andrebe, Duccio Testa, Benoît Labit, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Hugo De Oliveira, Claudio Marini, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Anna Teplukhina, Joan Decker, Cedric Kar-Wai Tsui, Umar Sheikh, Cristian Galperti, Kevin Henricus Annemarie Verhaegh, Dahye Choi, Aylwin Iantchenko, Mengdi Kong, Roberto Maurizio, Francesco Carpanese, Mirko Wensing, Lorenzo Stipani, Federico Pesamosca, Olivier Claude Martin Février, Filippo Bagnato, Cristian Sommariva, Davide Galassi

The most efficient and promising operational regime for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor tokamak is the high-confinement mode. In this regime, however, periodic relaxations of the plasma edge can occur. These edge-localized modes pose a ...

2025

Interpretation of divertor ion temperature measurements from an attached towards a detached regime

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Holger Reimerdes, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Olivier Claude Martin Février, Lorenzo Martinelli, Sophie Danielle Angelica Gorno, Claudia Colandrea, Christine Stollberg, Luke Simons, Artur Perek

We present simultaneous profiles of the poloidal distribution of electron temperature and density (Te, ne), the poloidal emissivity distributions of a range of spectral lines together with the corresponding ion temperatures, Ti, in the TCV divertor plasma. ...

2025

Present status of heating neutral beam injection system at TCV

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Damien Fasel, Ambrogio Fasoli, Yves Martin, Olivier Sauter, Stefano Coda, Ugo Siravo, Alexander Karpushov, Yanis Andrebe, Jérémie Dubray, Frédéric Dolizy, Rémy Jacquier, Matthieu Toussaint, Dmytry Mykytchuk

The paper describes the operation and upgrade of the Heating Neutral Beam Injection (HNBI) system as well as the related infrastructure at the Tokamak Configuration Variable (TCV) during the last years. In 2023, the installation of new TCV neutron shieldin ...

2025

Hosing of a Long Relativistic Particle Bunch in Plasma

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Yanis Andrebe, Alban Sublet, Sun Hee Kim, Riccardo Agnello, Christine Stollberg, Shuai Liu

Experimental results show that hosing of a long particle bunch in plasma can be induced by wakefields driven by a short, misaligned preceding bunch. Hosing develops in the plane of misalignment, selfmodulation in the perpendicular plane, at frequencies clo ...

Amer Physical Soc2024

Experimental research on the TCV tokamak

Patrick Blanchard, Stefano Alberti, Ambrogio Fasoli, Timothy Goodman, Yves Martin, Olivier Sauter, Henri Weisen, Ivo Furno, Holger Reimerdes, Jean-Philippe Hogge, Stefano Coda, Alexander Karpushov, Yanis Andrebe, Duccio Testa, Benoît Labit, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Jérémy Genoud, Hugo De Oliveira, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Antoine Baillod, Joan Decker, Cedric Kar-Wai Tsui, Pedro Andres Molina Cabrera, Umar Sheikh, Cristian Galperti, Marcelo Baquero Ruiz, Aylwin Iantchenko, Mengdi Kong, Francesco Carpanese, Federico Pesamosca, Olivier Claude Martin Février, Simon Van Mulders, Nicola Offeddu, Garance Hélène Salomé Durr-Legoupil-Nicoud, Maurizio Giacomin, Filippo Bagnato, Davide Galassi, Arsène Stéphane Tema Biwole, Lorenzo Martinelli, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Overview of the EUROfusion Tokamak Exploitation programme in support of ITER and DEMO

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Timothy Goodman, Jean-Marc Moret, Olivier Sauter, Henri Weisen, Holger Reimerdes, Stefano Coda, Alexander Karpushov, Duccio Testa, Benoît Labit, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Joan Decker, Cedric Kar-Wai Tsui, Umar Sheikh, Cristian Galperti, Marcelo Baquero Ruiz, Aylwin Iantchenko, Mengdi Kong, Olivier Claude Martin Février, Paulo Giovane Paschoali Pereira Puglia, Simon Van Mulders, Nicola Offeddu, Garance Hélène Salomé Durr-Legoupil-Nicoud, Filippo Bagnato, Davide Galassi, Lorenzo Martinelli, Jean Arthur Cazabonne, Alessandro Pau, Matteo Vallar, Sophie Danielle Angelica Gorno, Claudia Colandrea, Dmytry Mykytchuk, Gino Marceca, Davide Mancini, Cassandre Ekta Contré, Guang-Yu Sun, , , , , , , , , ,

Filamentation of a relativistic proton bunch in plasma

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Yanis Andrebe, Riccardo Agnello, Christine Stollberg

We show in experiments that a long, underdense, relativistic proton bunch propagating in plasma undergoes the oblique instability, which we observe as filamentation. We determine a threshold value for the ratio between the bunch transverse size and plasma ...

2024

A control oriented strategy of disruption prediction to avoid the configuration collapse of tokamak reactors

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Olivier Sauter, Henri Weisen, Duccio Testa, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Umar Sheikh, Paulo Giovane Paschoali Pereira Puglia, Eduardo José Lascas Neto, Cristian Sommariva, Davide Galassi, Mike Machielsen, Alessandro Pau, Gino Marceca

The objective of thermonuclear fusion consists of producing electricity from the coalescence of light nuclei in high temperature plasmas. The most promising route to fusion envisages the confinement of such plasmas with magnetic fields, whose most studied ...

Nature Research2024

Development of the self-modulation instability of a relativistic proton bunch in plasma

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Samuel Rey-Mermet, Yanis Andrebe, Alban Sublet, Sun Hee Kim, Ana Francisca Leal Silva Soares, Riccardo Agnello, Christine Stollberg, Shuai Liu

Self-modulation is a beam-plasma instability that is useful to drive large-amplitude wakefields with bunches much longer than the plasma skin depth. We present experimental results showing that, when increasing the ratio between the initial transverse size ...

2023

Evaluation of neutron dose rates at the TCV tokamak facility

Patrick Blanchard, Henri Weisen, Matteo Vallar

A detailed MCNP neutronics model of the building housing the TCV tokamak has been developed. Predicted dose rates have been compared to neutron dose measurements at 12 locations in the building obtained during neutral beam injection into TCV plasmas. This ...

2023

TCV Tokamak Neutron Shielding Upgrade for Dual NBI Operation

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Henri Weisen, Alexander Karpushov, Duccio Testa, Jérémie Dubray, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Matteo Vallar

The Tokamak a Configuration variable (TCV) is equipped with two neutral beam injection (NBI) systems delivering up to 1.2 MW each for pulse durations of up to 2 s. The first system (NBI1), designed for an injection energy in the range of 25 to 30 keV has b ...

2023

Validation of 2D T e and n e measurements made with Helium imaging spectroscopy in the volume of the TCV divertor

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Holger Reimerdes, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Hugo De Oliveira, Cedric Kar-Wai Tsui, Nicola Offeddu, Filippo Bagnato, Lorenzo Martinelli, Sophie Danielle Angelica Gorno, Claudia Colandrea, Dmytry Mykytchuk, Artur Perek

Multi-spectral imaging of helium atomic emission (HeMSI) has been used to create 2D poloidal maps of T-e and ne in TCV's divertor. To achieve these measurements, TCV's MANTIS multispectral cameras (Perek et al 2019 Rev. Sci. Instrum. 90 123514) simultaneou ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2023

Full conversion from ohmic to runaway electron driven current via massive gas injection in the TCV tokamak

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Olivier Sauter, Stefano Coda, Benoît Labit, Joan Decker, Umar Sheikh, Cristian Galperti, Gergely Papp

Full conversion from ohmic to runaway electron (RE) driven current was observed in the tokamak a configuration variable (TCV) following massive injection of neon through a disruption mitigation valve into a low-density limited circular plasma. Following a ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Overview of the TCV tokamak experimental programme

Patrick Blanchard, Stephan Brunner, Stefano Alberti, Basil Duval, Ambrogio Fasoli, Timothy Goodman, Xavier Llobet, Yves Martin, Jean-Marc Moret, Olivier Sauter, Henri Weisen, Ivo Furno, Holger Reimerdes, Jean-Philippe Hogge, Jan Horacek, Alexander Karpushov, Laurie Porte, Yanis Andrebe, Jonathan Graves, Duccio Testa, Benoît Labit, Joaquim Loizu Cisquella, Paolo Ricci, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Miguel Filipe Silva Füglister, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Oulfa Chellaï, Curdin Tobias Wüthrich, Joan Decker, Cedric Kar-Wai Tsui, Pedro Andres Molina Cabrera, Matteo Fontana, Umar Sheikh, Cristian Galperti, Marcelo Baquero Ruiz, Dahye Choi, Aylwin Iantchenko, Mengdi Kong, Roberto Maurizio, Francesco Carpanese, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Improved heat and particle flux mitigation in high core confinement, baffled, alternative divertor configurations in the TCV tokamak

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Holger Reimerdes, Benoît Labit, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Hugo De Oliveira, Umar Sheikh, Filippo Bagnato, Matteo Vallar, Sophie Danielle Angelica Gorno, Claudia Colandrea, Harshita Raj, Artur Perek

Nitrogen seeded detachment has been achieved in the tokamak a configuration variable (TCV) in alternative divertor configurations (ADCs), namely X-divertor and X-point target, with and without baffles in H-mode plasmas with high core confinement. Both ADCs ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Overview of JET results for optimising ITER operation

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Olivier Sauter, Henri Weisen, Jonathan Graves, Duccio Testa, Federico Alberto Alfredo Felici, Matteo Fontana, Umar Sheikh, Paulo Giovane Paschoali Pereira Puglia, Eduardo José Lascas Neto, Cristian Sommariva, Davide Galassi, Mike Machielsen, Alessandro Pau, Gino Marceca

The JET 2019-2020 scientific and technological programme exploited the results of years of concerted scientific and engineering work, including the ITER-like wall (ILW: Be wall and W divertor) installed in 2010, improved diagnostic capabilities now fully a ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

The AWAKE Run 2 Programme and Beyond

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Yanis Andrebe, Riccardo Agnello, Christine Stollberg

Plasma wakefield acceleration is a promising technology to reduce the size of particle accelerators. The use of high energy protons to drive wakefields in plasma has been demonstrated during Run 1 of the AWAKE programme at CERN. Protons of energy 400 GeV d ...

2022

Controlled Growth of the Self-Modulation of a Relativistic Proton Bunch in Plasma

Patrick Blanchard, Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Yanis Andrebe, Riccardo Agnello, Christine Stollberg

A long, narrow, relativistic charged particle bunch propagating in plasma is subject to the self -modulation (SM) instability. We show that SM of a proton bunch can be seeded by the wakefields driven by a preceding electron bunch. SM timing reproducibility ...

2022

Initial TCV operation with a baffled divertor

Patrick Blanchard, Basil Duval, Ambrogio Fasoli, Jean-Marc Moret, Holger Reimerdes, Duccio Testa, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Matthieu Toussaint, Hugo De Oliveira, Cedric Kar-Wai Tsui, Umar Sheikh, Marcelo Baquero Ruiz, Roberto Maurizio, Mirko Wensing, Filippo Bagnato, Davide Galassi, Lorenzo Martinelli, Sophie Danielle Angelica Gorno, Claudia Colandrea, Harshita Raj, Artur Perek

The Tokamak à Configuration Variable (TCV) tokamak is in the midst of an upgrade to further its capability to investigate conventional and alternative divertor configurations. To that end, modular and removable gas baffles have been installed to decrease t ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2021