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Status of the SPARC Physics Basis

This special issue’s seven peer-reviewed articles provide a comprehensive summary of the physics basis for SPARC: a compact, high-field, DT burning tokamak, currently under design by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. The SPARC project builds on a remarkable period of progress in the understanding of magnetically confined plasmas achieved collectively by the world’s fusion programs. 

Rendering of SPARC, a compact, high-field, DT burning tokamak, currently under design by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. Its mission is to create and confine a plasma that produces net fusion energy.

https://creativecommons.org/li...

"Cutaway of the SPARC engineering design" Author: CFS/MIT-PSFC - CAD Rendering by T. Henderson

 "These studies put SPARC on a firm scientific basis. When we build and operate the machine as described in these papers, we fully expect to meet our target for fusion gain and produce a wealth of new and important information on burning plasmas”

Guest Editorial Author - Martin Greenwald, Plasma Science & Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

 “JPP is proud to host this set of important papers, which lay out how to use state-of-the-art plasma physics science to design and engineer a fusion reactor experiment. Plasma physicists are part of a vibrant scientific community that is driven by technological advances. We are excited to be the platform chosen by the SPARC team for this set of important scientific publications. This reinforces a standard for the way in which new experiments can be proposed: in an open-access, peer-reviewed format."

Journal of Plasma Physics Editor - William Dorland, University of Maryland, USA

Editorial

Research Article