Integrated Calendar

The history of dielectronic recombination (DR) is fill of, skepticism, hope, excitement, and finally, clear realization of its importance for hot high-Z plasmas. Using the NIST electron beam ion trap (EBIT), that is capable of reproducing conditions of future multi-million-Kelvin fusion reactors, we study dielectronic recombination in >50-times ionized heavy elements (such as tungsten) using highly forbidden low-energy magnetic-dipole lines. The newly proposed method allows for simultaneous in situ measurements of dielectronic resonances for several ions without "standard" beam ramping or ion extraction. Large-scale DR simulations show a strong effect of anisotropic unidirectional propagation of the electron beam on the plasma ionization balance.

In statistical physics the emergence of large scale collective phenomena out of local interactions between simple agents takes place in general only for very special (zero measure) / critical values of the parameters (temperature, pressure, etc). Yet, in nature collective objects and their large scale dynamics are ubiquitous features dominating our daily experience. Each of the last decades proposed a different generic mechanism for the emergence of macroscopic complex dynamics out of local microscopic laws. Nowadays it seems that most of the instances in which microscopic events are promoted to macroscopic changes are related to some form of autocatalytic process. Identifying the relevant autocatalytic process allows one to gain nderstanding and control on the seemingly messy empirical systems.
I will review some of the instances in which the resulting models were analytically tractable and in which the theoretical predictions were confirmed by the data.