Publications by Mario Ludovico Podesta

First measurements of velocity-space resolved intra-ELM fast-ion losses on the TCV tokamak

Basil Duval, Ambrogio Fasoli, Alexander Karpushov, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Benoît Labit, Umesh Kumar, Jesús Poley Sanjuán

Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) induced fast-ion losses have been characterised in the energy, E, and pitch, λ = v ∥ / v , space using a unique Fast Ion Loss Detector (FILD) on the tokamak à configuration variable. The FILD is equipped with a 128 Avalanche Pho ...

2025

Energetic particle physics: Chapter 7 of the special issue: on the path to tokamak burning plasma operation

Mario Ludovico Podesta

We review the physics of energetic particles (EPs) in magnetically confined burning fusion plasmas with focus on advances since the last update of the ITER Physics Basis (Fasoli et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 S264). Topics include basic EP physics, EP generati ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

Electron trapping in gyrotron electron guns: Validation of the FENNECS code with the T-REX experiment

Stefano Alberti, Timothy Goodman, Jean-Philippe Hogge, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Joaquim Loizu Cisquella, Jérémy Genoud, Guillaume Michel Le Bars, Falk Hans Braunmüller, Francesco Romano

Gyrotrons are essential devices for the development of nuclear fusion, but their design and reliable operation still present numerous challenges. In particular, certain gyrotrons encounter issues related to trapped electron clouds in the magnetron injectio ...

AIP Publishing2025

Experimental investigation of the radial structure of energetic particle driven GAM in TCV

Alexander Karpushov, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Duccio Testa, Umar Sheikh, Luke Simons, Jesús Poley Sanjuán

High amplitude energetic particle geodesic acoustic mode (EGAM) oscillations driven by Neutral Beam (NBI) injected in the direction counter to the toroidal plasma current are observed in the TCV tokamak. The modes appear at frequencies close to the geodesi ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

MHD stability analysis against pressure and current-driven modes in the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak

Mario Ludovico Podesta

Linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations for the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) have been carried out for the first time, for both positive (PT) and negative triangularity (NT) shaped plasmas using the MARS-F code. The MHD stability of projected SM ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2024

Linear gyrokinetic simulations of toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes in the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak

Mario Ludovico Podesta

Linear gyrokinetic (GK) simulations using the Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) [Lin et al., "Turbulent transport reduction by zonal flows: Massively parallel simulations," Science 281, 1835-1837 (1998)] have been performed to investigate Toroidicity-driven ...

American Institute of Physics (AIP)2024

NBI optimization on SMART and implications for scenario development

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli

The SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) under commissioning at the University of Seville, Spain, aims to explore confinement properties and possible advantages in confinement for compact/spherical tokamaks operating at negative vs. positive triangularity. T ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Modelling of sawtooth-induced fast ion transport in positive and negative triangularity in TCV

Basil Duval, Olivier Sauter, Alexander Karpushov, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Duccio Testa, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Marcelo Baquero Ruiz, Lorenzo Stipani, Matteo Vallar, Dmytry Mykytchuk

Internal kinks are a common magneto hydro-dynamic (MHD) instability observed in tokamak operation when the q profile in the plasma core is close to unity. This MHD instability impacts both the transport of the bulk plasma (current, particle and energy tran ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Development of a reduced model for energetic particle transport by sawteeth in tokamaks

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli, Jiangyan Yang, Anna Teplukhina, Matteo Vallar

The sawtooth instability is known for inducing transport and loss of energetic particles (EPs), and for generating seed magnetic islands that can trigger tearing modes. Both effects degrade the overall plasma performance. Several theories and numerical mod ...

2022

Numerical studies on saturated kink and sawtooth induced fast ion transport in JET ITER-like plasmas

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Matteo Vallar

This presentation examines the energetic particle transport induced by saturated kink modes and sawtooth crashes in JET deuterium plasmas. It is known that kink mode-resonant transport and phase-space redistribution from sawtooth crashes can drive strong f ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Simultaneous measurements of unstable and stable Alfven eigenmodes in JET

Ambrogio Fasoli, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Paulo Giovane Paschoali Pereira Puglia

In this paper, we report the novel experimental observation of both unstable and stable toroidicity-induced Alfven eigenmodes (TAEs) measured simultaneously in a JET tokamak plasma. The three-ion-heating scheme (D-DNBI-He-3) is employed to accelerate deute ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Simulating energetic particle losses in JET plasmas with a reverse integration biasing scheme

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Matteo Vallar

An integrated energetic particle transport model has been constructed in JET plasmas constrained by experimental fast ion loss measurements. The model incorporates a synthetic fast ion loss detector identical to JET's thin-foil Faraday cup fast ion loss de ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

A novel measurement of marginal Alfven eigenmode stability during high power auxiliary heating in JET

Ambrogio Fasoli, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Paulo Giovane Paschoali Pereira Puglia

The interaction of Alfven eigenmodes (AEs) and energetic particles is one of many important factors determining the success of future tokamaks. In JET, eight in-vessel antennas were installed to actively probe stable AEs with frequencies ranging 25-250 kHz ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

DIII-D research towards establishing the scientific basis for future fusion reactors

Wilfred Anthony Cooper, Richard Pitts, Olivier Sauter, Stefan Müller, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli, Dongbin Zhao, Gang Yu, Huan Du, Alessandro Bortolon, Alessandro Marinoni, Jeffrey Huang, Sun Hee Kim, Jérôme Guterl, Zhixian Yan, Fang Liu, Terunobu Akiyama, Xin Yang, Wei Wu, Lorenzo Anton-Louis Talà, Federico David Halpern, Gabriele Merlo, Yu Fu, Shouguo Wang, Sung Chul Park, Xi Chen, Tzu-Hsien Shen, Bingying Zhao, Kyungjin Kim, Ji Hyun Kim, Yi Wang, Hui Wang, Zheng Wang

DIII-D research is addressing critical challenges in preparation for ITER and the next generation of fusion devices through focusing on plasma physics fundamentals that underpin key fusion goals, understanding the interaction of disparate core and boundary ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2019

Validation of Neutral Beam Current Drive and projections to ITER – ITPA Joint Experiment EP8

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Duccio Testa

2018

Validation of Neutral Beam Current Drive and projections to ITER

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Duccio Testa

2018

Overview of MAST results

Wilfred Anthony Cooper, Ricardo Pérez Suárez, Jan Horacek, Jonathan Graves, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Ben McMillan, Otto Asunta

The Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST) programme is strongly focused on addressing key physics issues in preparation for operation of ITER as well as providing solutions for DEMO design choices. In this regard, MAST has provided key results in understand ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2015

Plasma turbulence, suprathermal ion dynamics and code validation on the basic plasma physics device TORPEX

Ambrogio Fasoli, Ivo Furno, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli, Benoît Labit, Alexandre Dominique Bovet, Joaquim Loizu Cisquella, Gennady Plyushchev, Davoud Iraji, Paolo Ricci, Christian Gabriel Theiler, Kyle Gustafson, Fabio Avino

The TORPEX basic plasma physics device at the Center for Plasma Physics Research (CRPP) in Lausanne, Switzerland is described. In TORPEX, simple magnetized toroidal configurations, a paradigm for the tokamak scrape-off layer (SOL), as well as more complex ...

Cambridge University Press2015

Comparison of 3D flux-driven scrape-off layer turbulence simulations with gas-puff imaging of Alcator C-Mod inner-wall limited discharges

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Paolo Ricci, Federico David Halpern

We carry out a quantitative comparison between gas-puff imaging (GPI) turbulence measurements in Alcator C-Mod inner-wall limited discharges (Zweben et al 2009 Phys. Plasmas 18 082505) and 3D flux-driven drift-reduced Braginskii turbulence simulations of s ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2015

Advanced divertor configurations with large flux expansion

Basil Duval, Holger Reimerdes, Stefano Coda, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Benoît Labit, Wouter Vijvers

Experimental studies of the novel snowflake divertor concept (D. Ryutov, Phys. Plasmas 14 (2007) 064502) performed in the NSTX and TCV tokamaks are reviewed in this paper. The snowflake divertor enables power sharing between divertor strike points, as well ...

Elsevier Science Bv2013