02/19/2026

An abrupt transition from drift-wave turbulence (DW) to kinetic ballooning turbulence (KBM) can trigger a pedestal buildup within a short time typical for L-H transitions. This has been shown in global full-f turbulence simulation with the GRILLIX code. The study let by Wladimir Zholobenko from the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching has been recently published in Physical Review Letters. 

02/05/2026

Peter Manz presents the activities of the working group at the seminar held by the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Neustrelitz.

02/2026

We are also taking advantage of the winter transfer window to strengthen our team. The working group welcomes three new members in February:

Dr. Gennadii Liziakin comes from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. He is a proven expert in mass separation in magnetized plasmas and already has experience with helicon discharges. He will strengthen our experimental team at VINETA.75.

Dr. Maurice Mauer originally comes from fusion research and has extensive expertise in gyrokinetic plasma physics, numerical simulation of magnetized plasmas, and high-performance computing. In recent years, he has offered Python courses for scientists and engineers at graduate schools of the Max Planck Institutes and universities. With Mr. Maurer's help, we can now numerically accompany our experiments.

Sander De Koker recently completed his master's degree in nuclear fusion and engineering physics at the University of Aix-Marseille as part of the Fusion-EP program. In his master's thesis, Mr. De Koker investigated the sensitivity of poloidal correlation reflectometry (PCR) using full-wave simulations in Stuttgart. As part of the DYNAFLUC project, he will investigate phase velocities with PCR at W7-X. 

01/27-30/2026

Stefan Knauer and Stefan Schütt are in Heidelberg this week, discussing future collaborations with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and presenting our SWADEX-II experiment there.

01/12/2026

Felix Schuchmann submitted his bachelor's thesis on the topic of “Decoupling particle and heat transport in drift-wave turbulence by conduction.” The thesis is based on the idea that fluctuations in electron temperature can be dissipated through heat conduction, which can lead to a decoupling of particle and heat transport. This is particularly relevant for the I-mode. In his thesis, Mr. Schuchmann performed simulations of an extended Hasegawa-Wakatani system using BOUT++. He was supported in this by T. Tork (IPP), T. Gherorghiu, and R. Ghian (both University of York). It has been shown that temperature fluctuations can lead to an anti-correlation between potential and density fluctuations, which can also lead to an anti-correlation of particle and heat transport. We would like to thank Mr. Schuchmann for his excellent work.