Filed under:

LPPX - LPP Experiment • Plasma Network • Dense Plasma Focus ("DPF") •

"...there had actually been two earlier efforts to set up international organizations of DPF researchers. In each case, the effort had essentially been reduced to a method of raising money for a single group."

Pan American Dense Plasma Focus Network - Discussion

Posted by Admin on Jun 20, 2003 at 04:42 PM
Tools: Print | | chat

(0) Comments

In May 2003, Jorge Pouzo, a leading plasma focus researcher at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, initiated a discussion among DPF (dense plasma focus) scientists in North and South America aimed at forming a “Pan Americana DPF Club”, an organization of DPF researchers. The result has been the formation of an ongoing network for communication among the researchers, which has already produced valuable discussion and will lead to closer collaboration.

Dr. Pouzo kicked off the idea by communicating it to research groups in New Jersey (Lawrenceville Plasma Physics), Texas, Canada, Mexico, and Chile. His original conception was to develop a joint project and apply to the Organization of American States or another International funding source for money.

Other participants, such as Julio Herrera of the National University of Mexico, pointed out that there had actually been two earlier efforts to set up international organizations of DPF researchers. In each case, the effort had essentially been reduced to a method of raising money for a single group. It was also pointed out that a concrete project was needed to have a good chance of raising funds.

In response to these earlier problems, Herrera proposed to set up a Pan American DPF Network which would exchange information and ideas, and perhaps collaborate on joint research projects . Eric Lerner of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics (and Focus Fusion Society) seconded this approach and further proposed that the network set up an exchange of data, so that experimental data could be widely sheared among the network participants. This network idea was informally accepted and has now come into existence.

As an early example of the benefits of the Network, there have already been two useful technical discussions via email. The first involved ways to determine the size of the plasmoids (the tiny hotspots formed by the focus) from x-ray shadows of arrays of wires. The second involves a newly uncovered magnetic effect that could make net fusion energy production easier to achieve. In the future, more concrete forms of cooperation will likely emerge from the new network, which may in time expand to include DPF groups in the rest of the world.

New Magnetic Effect Discussed at Conferences