Today I visited the CRPP - the plasma research centre on the campus of the Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne. Yves, our guide, is a physicist involved in managing the projects involving their experimental nuclear fusion reactor. He took me and a group of Swiss high school students through the facility, explaining the basic "basic" physics. This is an awesome combination of almost all aspects of physics in one machine. Microwaves at the different resonant frequencies of electrons and ions are used to raise the temperature of the plasma, enormous magnetic fields are used to trap the plasma in a helical trajectory around the torus, the Doppler shifting of laser light is used to determine the temperature, the angular momentum of the particles in the plasma has to be corrected for... It is an impressive compilation of all branches of physics.
The physics question for today is: In order to keep the plasma contained inside the reactor, a strong magnetic field is used. How does this work, and what shape must the magnetic field be to produce the helical trajectory followed by the plasma?
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