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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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My research focuses on 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, the process that powers stars such as the Sun and offers the promise of
a clean and unlimited energy source for humanity. I develop advanced
simulations on the world’s fastest supercomputers to study plasma confinement
properties in magnetic fusion experiments—among the most critical scientific
challenges for burning plasma experiment ITER,
the crucial next step in the quest for the fusion
energy and the biggest international science collaboration.
Our flagship fusion code, GTC, has been developed jointly by an
international team including my group at UCI and collaborators in the ITER
partnership. GTC has been extensively used to simulate magnetic fusion
experiments including DIII-D, NSTX-U, ITER,
JET, KSTAR, MAST-U, & ADITYA-U tokamaks,
W7-X
& LHD
stellarators, and C2 field-reversed configuration. These
high-fidelity 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, cross-scale interaction,
zonal flow regulating
macroscopic mode in magnetic fusion plasmas.
Selected
Recent Publications:
·
Energetic
particle loss under the effects of the radial electric field in LHD,
Ethan Green, Wataru Hayashi, Xishuo Wei, Zhihong Lin,
Hiroyuki Yamaguchi, Masaki Osakabe, Hideo Nuga, Kunihiro Ogawa, Ryosuke Seki, Mitsutaka Isobe, Yasuko Kawamoto, Akihiro Shimizu, Takeshi
Ido, and Masaki Nishiura, Nuclear Fusion 66, 026044 (2026).
·
Global
linear drift-wave eigenmode structures on flux surfaces in stellarators: ion
temperature gradient mode, H. Zhu, H. Chen, Z. Lin, and A.
Bhattacharjee, Nuclear Fusion 66, 016011 (2026).
·
Verification
of global gyrokinetic simulation of low frequency mode excited by thermal
plasma in spherical tokamak, Handi Huang, Nikolai Gorelenkov, Xishuo Wei, Zhihong Lin, V. N. Duarte, Stan Kaye and
Michele Romanelli, Nuclear Fusion 66, 036050 (2026).
·
Geometry
effects on zonal flow dynamics and turbulent transport in optimized
stellarators, Haotian Chen, Xishuo
Wei, Hongxuan Zhu, and Zhihong Lin, Nuclear Fusion
65, 074002 (2025).
·
Trapped
electron mode in a quasi-isodynamic stellarator,
Javier H. Nicolau, Xishuo Wei, Pengfei Liu, Gyungjin Choi, and Zhihong Lin, Nuclear
Fusion 65, 086049 (2025).
·
Collisionless zonal-flow dynamics in quasi-symmetric stellarators, Hongxuan Zhu, Z. Lin, and A. Bhattacharjee, J. Plasma
Physics 91, E28 (2025).
·
Zonal
flow suppression of turbulent transport in the optimized stellarators W7-X and
QSTK, Abhishek Tiwari, Joydeep Das, Jaya Kumar
Alageshan, Gareth Roberg-Clark, Gabriel Plunk, Pavlos Xanthopoulos, Sarveshwar
Sharma, Zhihong Lin, and Animesh Kuley, Plasma Phys. Contr. Fusion 67,
085025 (2025).
·
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).
·
Transfer Learning
Nonlinear Plasma Dynamic Transitions in Low Dimensional Embeddings via Deep
Neural Networks, Zhe Bai, Xishuo
Wei, William Tang, Leonid Oliker, Zhihong Lin, Samuel Williams, Machine Learning: Science and Technology 6, 025015 (2025).
·
Global
gyrokinetic simulations of kinetic ballooning mode in NSTX-U plasmas, Tajinder Singh, Tariq Rafiq, Eugenio Schuster, Zhihong Lin,
Animesh Kuley, Nuclear Fusion 65,
106039 (2025).