Stellarators are a promising type of fusion reactor that can run in steady-state with a low risk of disrupting. They need to be optimized for good particle confinement, however, and their complicated geometry makes these calculations expensive. We have developed the code DESC to compute three-dimensional equilibria by solving the magnetohydrodynamic force balance equations. In contrast to other stellarator equilibrium codes, DESC is fast, accurate, flexible, and easy to use. Our hope is that DESC will become a powerful tool for the design and operation of modern stellarator experiments.
The Plasma Control group is actively looking for new research scholars, postdoctoral researchers and graduate students to conduct research on stellarator optimization. You can reach out to Prof. Kolemen directly if you would like to join our group.
Theory publication: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/5.0020743
Public GitHub repository: https://github.com/PlasmaControl/DESC
Code documentation: https://desc-docs.readthedocs.io/
Check out our recent presentations at APS-DPP 2022!
D. Dudt, R. Conlin, D. Panici, P. Kim, K. Unalmis, and E. Kolemen “Efficient Stellarator Optimization and Analysis with DESC” APS-DPP, October 2022. pdf
R. Conlin, J. Schiling, D. Dudt, D. Panici, P. Kim, K.E. Unalmis, and E. Kolemen “Free Boundary Stellarator Equilibria and Coil Optimization in DESC” APS-DPP, October 2022. pdf
D. Panici, D.W. Dudt, R. Conlin, K. Unalmis, P. Kim, and E. Kolemen “Minimal Poincare Boundary Condition for 3D MHD Equilibria” APS-DPP, October 2022. pdf
Recent Publications
D.W. Dudt, R. Conlin, D. Panici and E. Kolemen. “The DESC Stellarator Code Suite Part III: Quasi-symmetry optimization.” pre-print. arxiv pdf
R. Conlin, D.W. Dudt, D. Panici and E. Kolemen. “The DESC Stellarator Code Suite Part II: Perturbation and continuation methods.” pre-print. arxiv pdf
D. Panici, R. Conlin, D.W. Dudt and E. Kolemen. “The DESC Stellarator Code Suite Part I: Quick and accurate equilibria computations.” pre-print. arxiv pdf