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Zhihong Lin Chancellor’s
Professor, Department of Physics
and Astronomy University
of California, Irvine, CA 92697 Email: zhihongl@uci.edu; Tel: (949) 287-3922 |
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I study the physics of high temperature plasma, the
fourth state of matter, which constitutes 99% of the visible universe. Plasma
physics is the scientific foundation for fusion energy, which powers the stars
such as the Sun and promises for a clean and unlimited energy source for the
humanity. I use advanced simulations on the world’s fastest supercomputers to
study turbulent transport, which is one of the most important scientific
challenges in burning plasma experiment ITER,
the crucial next step in the quest for the fusion energy and the biggest international science collaboration.
The confinement of energetic particles is a
critical issue for the ITER and fusion pilot plant (FPP) because the ignition
in the burning plasmas relies on the self-heating by energetic fusion products
(α-particles). Our simulations of energetic particle confinement for the
performance assessment and optimization of the ITER and FPP burning plasmas are
supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Scientific Discovery through
Advanced Computing (SciDAC)
initiative and use the fastest supercomputers in the US through competitive
award for the computer time by the DOE Innovative and Novel Computational
Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program.
Our flagship fusion code GTC has been developed jointly by a
collaborative team including my group at UCI and collaborators in the ITER
partnership, and extensively utilized to simulate fusion experiments including DIII-D, NSTX-U, ITER, JET, EAST, KSTAR, HL-2A, MAST, & ADITYA-U tokamaks, W7-X & LHD stellarators,
and C2 field-reversed
configuration. These first-principles massively parallel simulations and
associated theory have led to physics discovery in turbulence
self-regulation by zonal flows, zonal flow damping, neoclassical transport,
transport scaling, wave-particle decorrelation,
energetic particle
transport, electron
transport, nonlinear
dynamics of Alfven eigenmodes, localization of Alfven
eigenmodes, driftwave
stability, transport
bifurcation in fusion plasmas.
Selected
Recent Publications:
·
Gyrokinetic simulations of effects of magnetic islands
on microturbulence in KSTAR, Xishuo Wei, Javier H Nicolau, Gyungjin
Choi, Zhihong Lin, Seong-Moo Yang, SangKyeun Kim, WooChang Lee, Chen Zhao, Tyler Cote, JongKyu
Park, Dmitri Orlov, Nuclear Fusion 65, 026026 (2025).
·
Collisionless zonal-flow dynamics in quasi-symmetric stellarators, Hongxuan Zhu, Z. Lin, and A. Bhattacharjee, J. Plasma
Physics 91, E28 (2025).
·
Saturation of
fishbone instability through zonal flows driven by energetic particle transport
in tokamak plasmas, G. Brochard, C. Liu, X. Wei, W.
Heidbrink, Z. Lin, M.V. Falessi, F. Zonca, Z. Qiu, N. Gorelenkov, C. Chrystal,
X. Du, J. Bao, A. R. Polevoi, M. Schneider, S. H. Kim, S. D. Pinches, P. Liu,
J. H. Nicolau, H. Lutjens, and the ISEP group, Nuclear Fusion 65,
016052 (2025).
·
Effects of Zonal Fields on Energetic-Particle
Excitations of Reversed Shear Alfven Eigenmode: Simulation and Theory, Liu
Chen, Pengfei Liu, Ruirui Ma, Zhihong Lin, Zhiyong
Qiu, Wenhao Wang, and Fulvio Zonca, Nuclear Fusion 65,
016018 (2025).
·
Saturation of
fishbone instability by self-generated zonal flows in tokamak plasmas, G.
Brochard, C. Liu, X. Wei, W. Heidbrink, Z. Lin, N. Gorelenkov, J. Bao, A. R.
Polevoi, M. Schneider, S. H. Kim, S. D. Pinches, P. Liu, J. H. Nicolau, and H.
Lutjens, Phys.
Rev. Lett. 132, 075101 (2024).
·
Linear gyrokinetic simulations of Toroidal Alfvén
Eigenmodes in the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak, H.H.
Wong, H. Huang, P. Liu, Y. Yu, X. Wei, G. Brochard, N. Fil, Z. Lin, M. Podesta,
P.J. Bonofiglo, K.G. McClements, C.A. Michael, N.A.
Crocker, L. Garzotti, and T.A. Carter, Phys.
Plasmas 31, 112508 (2024).
·
A gyrokinetic
simulation model for 2D equilibrium potential in the scrape-off layer of a
field-reversed configuration, W. H. Wang, X. S. Wei, Z. Lin, C. Lau,
S. Dettrick, T. Tajima, Phys. Plasmas
31, 072507 (2024).
·
Excited ion-scale turbulence by a magnetic island in
fusion plasmas, Wenyang Li, Jingchun Li, Z. Lin, J. Q.
Dong, J. T. Luo, & Yong Liu, Scientific Reports 14, 25362
(2024).
·
Gyrokinetic
simulations of electrostatic microturbulence in ADITYA-U tokamak with argon
impurity, Tajinder Singh, Kajal Shah, Deepti
Sharma, Joydeep Ghosh, Kumarpalsinh A. Jadeja, Rakesh
L. Tanna, M. B. Chowdhuri, Zhihong Lin, Abhijit Sen, Sarveshwar Sharma, Animesh
Kuley, Nuclear Fusion 64, 086038 (2024).
·
Effects of
hydrogen isotope species on ITG microturbulence in LHD, Y.
Q. Qin, Y. C. Chen, G. Y. Sun, J. Nicolau, and Z. Lin, Plasma Phys. Contr. Fusion 66,
085004 (2024).
·
Disappearance of Dimits Shift in Realistic Fusion
Reactor Plasmas with Negative Magnetic Shear, Dingkun Yang, Shengming Li, Yong
Xiao, and Zhihong Lin, Nuclear Fusion 64, 106045 (2024).
·
Cross-scale Interaction
between Microturbulence and Meso-scale Reversed Shear Alfvén Eigenmodes in
DIII-D Plasmas, P. Liu, X. Wei, Z. Lin, W. W Heidbrink,
G. Brochard, G. J. Choi, J. H. Nicolau, and W. Zhang, Nuclear
Fusion 64, 076007 (2024).
·
Global gyrokinetic
simulations of electrostatic microturbulent transport in LHD stellarator with
boron impurity, Tajinder Singh, Javier H. Nicolau,
Federico Nespoli, Gen Motojima, Zhihong Lin, Abhijit
Sen, Sarveshwar Sharma, and Animesh Kuley, Nuclear
Fusion 64, 016007 (2024).
·
Reconstruction of
tokamak plasma safety factor profile using deep learning,
Xishuo Wei, Shuying Sun, William Tang, Zhihong Lin, Hongfei Du, Ge Dong,
Nuclear
Fusion 63, 086020 (2023).
·
Verification of
gyrokinetic particle simulations of neoclassical tearing modes in fusion
plasmas, Kaijie Wang, Shuying Sun, Wenlu Zhang,
Zhihong Lin, Xishuo Wei, Pengfei Liu, Hongying Feng, Xiaogang Wang, and Ding
Li, Plasma Phys. Contr. Fusion 65, 105005 (2023).
·
Regulation
of Alfven eigenmodes by microturbulence in fusion plasmas,
P. Liu, X. Wei, Z. Lin, G. Brochard, G.J. Choi, W.W. Heidbrink, J.H. Nicolau,
and G. R. McKee, Phys. Rev. Lett. 128, 185001 (2022).