Publications by Mario Ludovico Podesta

First measurements of velocity-space resolved intra-ELM fast-ion losses on the TCV tokamak

Ambrogio Fasoli, Basil Duval, Benoît Labit, Alexander Karpushov, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Umesh Kumar, Jesús Poley Sanjuán

Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) induced fast-ion losses have been characterised in the energy, E, and pitch, λ = v ∥ / v , space using a unique Fast Ion Loss Detector (FILD) on the tokamak à configuration variable. The FILD is equipped with a 128 Avalanche Pho ...

2025

Energetic particle physics: Chapter 7 of the special issue: on the path to tokamak burning plasma operation

Mario Ludovico Podesta

We review the physics of energetic particles (EPs) in magnetically confined burning fusion plasmas with focus on advances since the last update of the ITER Physics Basis (Fasoli et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 S264). Topics include basic EP physics, EP generati ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

Electron trapping in gyrotron electron guns: Validation of the FENNECS code with the T-REX experiment

Timothy Goodman, Stefano Alberti, Jean-Philippe Hogge, Joaquim Loizu Cisquella, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Jérémy Genoud, Falk Hans Braunmüller, Francesco Romano, Guillaume Michel Le Bars

Gyrotrons are essential devices for the development of nuclear fusion, but their design and reliable operation still present numerous challenges. In particular, certain gyrotrons encounter issues related to trapped electron clouds in the magnetron injectio ...

AIP Publishing2025

Experimental investigation of the radial structure of energetic particle driven GAM in TCV

Duccio Testa, Alexander Karpushov, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Umar Sheikh, Luke Simons, Jesús Poley Sanjuán

High amplitude energetic particle geodesic acoustic mode (EGAM) oscillations driven by Neutral Beam (NBI) injected in the direction counter to the toroidal plasma current are observed in the TCV tokamak. The modes appear at frequencies close to the geodesi ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2025

MHD stability analysis against pressure and current-driven modes in the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak

Mario Ludovico Podesta

Linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations for the SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) have been carried out for the first time, for both positive (PT) and negative triangularity (NT) shaped plasmas using the MARS-F code. The MHD stability of projected SM ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2024

Linear gyrokinetic simulations of toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes in the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak

Mario Ludovico Podesta

Linear gyrokinetic (GK) simulations using the Gyrokinetic Toroidal Code (GTC) [Lin et al., "Turbulent transport reduction by zonal flows: Massively parallel simulations," Science 281, 1835-1837 (1998)] have been performed to investigate Toroidicity-driven ...

American Institute of Physics (AIP)2024

NBI optimization on SMART and implications for scenario development

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli

The SMall Aspect Ratio Tokamak (SMART) under commissioning at the University of Seville, Spain, aims to explore confinement properties and possible advantages in confinement for compact/spherical tokamaks operating at negative vs. positive triangularity. T ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Modelling of sawtooth-induced fast ion transport in positive and negative triangularity in TCV

Olivier Sauter, Basil Duval, Alexander Karpushov, Duccio Testa, Mario Ludovico Podesta, Antoine Pierre Emmanuel Alexis Merle, Marcelo Baquero Ruiz, Dmytry Mykytchuk, Matteo Vallar, Lorenzo Stipani

Internal kinks are a common magneto hydro-dynamic (MHD) instability observed in tokamak operation when the q profile in the plasma core is close to unity. This MHD instability impacts both the transport of the bulk plasma (current, particle and energy tran ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Development of a reduced model for energetic particle transport by sawteeth in tokamaks

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Francesca Maria Poli, Anna Teplukhina, Matteo Vallar, Jiangyan Yang

The sawtooth instability is known for inducing transport and loss of energetic particles (EPs), and for generating seed magnetic islands that can trigger tearing modes. Both effects degrade the overall plasma performance. Several theories and numerical mod ...

2022

Numerical studies on saturated kink and sawtooth induced fast ion transport in JET ITER-like plasmas

Mario Ludovico Podesta, Matteo Vallar

This presentation examines the energetic particle transport induced by saturated kink modes and sawtooth crashes in JET deuterium plasmas. It is known that kink mode-resonant transport and phase-space redistribution from sawtooth crashes can drive strong f ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022