When the manuscript was sent across the sea to Professor Krebberg's mailbox, a very serious meeting was taking place in the conference room of the Spiral Stone 7-x lab.

Sitting here are the big cows such as Professor Ganser Hesinger, the director of the Institute of Plasma Physics at the Max Planck Institute, and the heads of the Helmholtz Association. They also come from the pppl laboratory, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Huake Institute of Plasma Physics, etc. Visiting scholars of iter project participants.

If Professor Lazerson did not resign from pppl, the person sitting here at this moment should also have him. As the he-3 atom probe technology plays an increasingly important role in plasma observation, the status of the “he3 project team” has also risen.

But now, it is not Lazerson who is sitting here, but his assistant Lafun Boucher, a doctor who is only in his thirties. Sitting next to a group of big men, the new man’s expression was a little cramped and he didn’t dare to speak at the meeting.

As for why the atmosphere of the meeting is so serious...

I have to start from last month.

Just last month, the spiral stone 7-x finally completed the installation of the water-cooled divertor.

Originally, according to the plan of the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Max Planck Institute, the water-cooled divertor will completely solve the problem of the temperature of the reaction chamber.

However, the results were not as ideal as I expected.

The plasma heated to 100 million degrees of high temperature is indeed confined within the electromagnetic field, and the water-cooled divertor does play a role, but the temperature of the first wall rises more than the expectations of the field staff.

With a large amount of heat energy that could not be lost, the temperature of the first wall material increased, and gradually began to threaten the safety of the orbiter.

In order to avoid major safety incidents, the staff had to turn off the equipment and terminated the trial early.

Finally, after completing the installation of the water-cooled divertor, the high-temperature plasma plasma was only maintained for 6 minutes.

Compared with the more than one hundred seconds of the international mainstream research direction Tokemark device, this score has been quite good.

But for the imitation star, this achievement is undoubtedly a failure.

Looking at the research report in his hand, Kreb faced the experts and scholars at the conference table and made a brief report.

“...the water-cooled divertor has been installed, but the problem now is that the plasma constraints are not as perfect as we think.”

"... According to the feedback data, starting from 227 seconds, a small amount of unbound plasma contacted the first wall became the main cause of heat accumulation, eventually resulting in the accumulation of heat on the first wall material exceeding the cooling of the water-cooled divertor. Efficiency is beyond our expectations."

After listening to Krebs’s report, Professor Edor from the Helmholtz Association suddenly spoke up.

"What do you mean is that the problem is not on the water-cooled divertor, but the plasma in the star-like device is out of control?"

Spiral Stone 7-x Lab Although the research facility of the Max Planck Institute of Plasma Physics, the entire research facility including this imitation star is built by the Max Planck Society and the Helmholtz Association of Germany. .

As the second largest scientific research organization in Germany after the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association still has considerable say in the field of fusion energy.

"It's not out of control, it's the natural divergence of the plasma. Even if the stars can't make every plasma run around the track, there will always be a few plasmas hitting the first wall, and this is Acceptable errors," Kreiber emphasized over the question from the Helmholtz Association.

Professor Edor’s eyebrows picked and picked: “How many?”

Kreiber: "...this is just a metaphor. Of course I can't give you a specific amount. I can only tell you, at least compared to the mainstream Marktock device, we have done very well on the magnetic constraints. Excellent."

Seeing that the two had to quarrel, Professor Hesinger coughed and interrupted the argument between the two.

"The problem is very clear. Now we have to solve the problem instead of continuing to argue on meaningless things."

After a pause, Professor Hesinger continued.

“We have two choices now, one is to change the existing control scheme and the other is to change our cooling system.”

Either reduce the plasma on the first wall with a more precise electromagnetic field control, or change the performance of a more powerful water-cooled divertor to improve cooling performance.

“It’s hard to improve the existing control scheme,” Professor Kreb shook his head. “If there is a better control solution to replace, we have already used it.”

Butcher, who had never had a chance to speak, tried to interject: "What about replacing the water-cooled divertor?"

"This is not realistic, even if it is modified on the basis of the existing ones, it is impossible." Professor Hesinger shook his head: "The key to the problem now is that we have to honor the 30 we made before 2020. Minutes promise...and we only have a maximum of two years."

The atmosphere in the meeting room was a bit heavy and everyone did not speak.

As Professor Hesinger said, time is the key to everything.

The water-cooled divertor is not a refrigerator. This millimeter is even a micron-scale project. The difficulty of each step is exaggerated. It is not easy to reassemble, let alone redesign the device.

From 15 years to the present, it took them three years to install the current water-cooled divertor onto the spiral stone 7-x.

Now that there are only two years left in 2020, they simply don't have time to spend another three years redesigning and assembling the water-cooled divertor.

To be honest, it is foolish to delineate a specific time for science.

Even the most authoritative person in a certain field, it is impossible to predict in advance how long it takes a certain technology to make it.

It may be born tomorrow, or it may be wrong at all.

But if they don't do this and don't continue to paint the cake, no one will invest in them...

......

At 12 o'clock, the meeting was temporarily dissolved and scheduled to continue after two in the afternoon.

Sitting in the restaurant on the first floor of the laboratory, Kreiber ordered a cup of coffee, sat in the window, opened the laptop for work, and habitually logged in the mailbox and looked at the unread mail.

“Review invitation?”

Looking at the email lying in the mailbox, Kreiber's eyebrows picked it with interest.

Strictly speaking, he is not a plasma physicist, but an engineer in the direction of plasma physics and fusion energy.

In addition, compared with the mainstream Tokmak device, the imitation star is considered a "unpopular" research direction, and there are not many research institutions engaged in this field in the world.

The review of the journal of the American Physical Society, he remembers the last time it was five years ago.

Originally, I didn't intend to take the rest time of the meeting for review, but Kreb still couldn't stand the curiosity of the heart and opened the paper.

Although he is not a plasma physicist, he has been working for a long time in the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Max Planck Institute. He is not unfamiliar with the theoretical things. He still has the ability to review manuscripts and qualifications.

Mathematical model of plasma turbulence?

Seeing the abstract part of the paper, Professor Kreb's eyebrows picked it up.

The phenomenological model?

But it seems a bit different.

After reading the abstract section, Professor Kreb continued to look at the main part. When he saw the large-scale formula in the paper, the brow suddenly twitched.

As an engineer, the knowledge of mathematics is indispensable. However, these formulas in the paper are still beyond the scope of his knowledge reserve, and he is numb.

Speaking of it, just building a phenomenological model, do you need to use such profound mathematical methods?

When Professor Kreb was confused about this matter, this descriptive language saved the provincial "literacy" and suddenly reminded him of a person.

Directly turned to the author's position, Kreiber's mouth was also drawn with the eyebrows.

Sure enough, this guy...

Kreb, who shook his head with a smile and completely gave up, skipped the complicated formulas and looked at the mathematical model of the conclusion.

He admitted that he did not agree at first.

However, gradually, the more you look down, the more dignified the look on his face.

Suddenly, his face flashed a touch of color, and he couldn't wait to touch the phone in his pocket.

"Ig, I will send an email to your email address for a while, and print out the papers for me!"

Iger is his office assistant, and he is handed over to the general clerk, such as schedules and documents.

In principle, papers that have not been officially published are not open to the public in advance, but if they are only internal communication, it is not a violation of the principle.

After all, for many reviewers, if you see a particularly good manuscript, and it happens to involve areas that you don't understand, it is not uncommon to exchange opinions with peers with good academic reputation.

Iger: "Good sir, can you tell me how many copies you need?"

"How many people in the afternoon meeting, how many copies will be printed for me!"