When the manuscript was sent to Professor Kreber's mailbox across the ocean, a very serious meeting was going on in the conference room of the Spiral Rock 7-X laboratory.

Sitting here are such experts as Professor Ganser Heissinger, director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, as well as leaders from the Helmholtz Association, as well as visiting scholars from PPPL Laboratories, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and other ITER project participants.

If Professor Lazersson had not resigned from the PPPL, he would have been the one sitting here at this moment. Due to the increasing importance of He-3 atomic probe technology in plasma observation, the status of the "He3 project team" has also risen.

But now, it's not Lazersson, it's his assistant Ravern Bucher, a Ph.D. in his thirties. Sitting next to a group of bigwigs, the newcomer's expression was a little cramped, and he didn't dare to speak much at the meeting.

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

It all started last month.

Just last month, the Spiral Stone 7-X finally completed the installation of a water-cooled deflector.

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

However, the results were not as good as expected.

The plasma, which was heated to a temperature of 100 million degrees, was indeed confined to the electromagnetic field, and the water-cooled deflector did play a role, but the temperature of the first wall rose faster than the on-site staff expected.

As a large amount of heat energy is accumulated, the temperature of the first wall material continues to rise, which gradually begins to threaten the safety of the stellarum orbit.

In order to avoid a major safety incident, the staff had to turn off the equipment and terminate the test early.

In the end, after the installation of the water-cooled deflector, the confinement of the high-temperature pressure plasma was only maintained for 6 minutes.

Compared with the more than 100 seconds of the tokmak device, which is the mainstream research direction of the world, this achievement is already quite outstanding.

But for the stellarator, this achievement is undoubtedly a failure.

Looking at the research report in his hand, Kreber faced the experts and scholars at the conference table, making a short report.

“…… The water-cooled deflector has been installed, but the problem now is that the plasma constraints are not as perfect as we thought. ”

“…… According to the feedback data, from 227 seconds, a small amount of unbound plasma came into contact with the first wall, which became the main cause of heat accumulation, which eventually led to the heat accumulation rate on the first wall material exceeding the cooling efficiency of the water-cooled deflector, and also exceeding our expectations. ”

After listening to Kreber's report, Professor Ödor from the Helmholtz Association suddenly spoke.

"You mean, it's not the water-cooled deflector that's the plasma in the stellar that's out of control?"

Although the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics is a research facility at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, the entire research facility, including this stellar, was jointly built by the Max Planck Society and the German Helmholtz Association.

As the second largest scientific organization in Germany after the Max Planck Society, the Helmholtz Association has a strong voice in the field of fusion energy.

"It's not out of control, it's the natural divergence of plasma, even stars can't make every plasma run around the orbit in a regular way, there will always be a few plasmas hitting the first wall, and this is an acceptable error," Kleber stressed in response to a question from the Helmholtz Federation.

Professor Odor raised his eyebrows: "Just a few?" ”

Kreber: "...... It's just a metaphor, and I certainly can't give you a specific number. All I can tell you is that, at least compared to the mainstream Maktok device, we've done a pretty good job of magnetic confinement. ”

Seeing that the two were about to quarrel, Professor Hesinger coughed lightly, interrupting their argument.

"The problem is already clear, and now what we need to do is to solve the problem, not continue to argue over meaningless things."

After a pause, Professor Hesinger continued.

"We now have two options, 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 more precise electromagnetic field control, or change to a more powerful water-cooled deflector to improve cooling performance.

"It's hard to improve the existing control scheme," Professor Kreber said, shaking his head, "If there was a better control scheme to replace it, we would have used it a long time ago." ”

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

"It's not realistic, even if it's a retrofit on the basis of what you already have." Professor Heisinger shook his head: "The key now is that we have to deliver on the thirty-minute promise we made before 2020...... And we only have two years at most. ”

The atmosphere in the meeting room was a bit heavy, and everyone stopped talking.

As Professor Hesinger said, time is everything.

The water-cooled deflector is not a refrigerator, and the difficulty of each step is exaggerated, and it is not easy to reassemble, let alone redesign.

From 15 years to now, it took them three full years to put the current water-cooled deflector on the Spiral Stone 7-X.

With only two years to go until 2020, they simply didn't have time to spend another three years redesigning and assembling the water-cooled deflector.

Truth be told, it's a foolish thing to give science a specific time.

Even the most authoritative in a certain field cannot predict in advance how long it will take for a certain technology to be made.

It may be born tomorrow, or it may be fundamentally wrong.

But if they don't do it, don't keep drawing this pie, no one will put money on them......

……

At 12 o'clock, the meeting was temporarily dissolved and scheduled to resume after 2 p.m.

Sitting in the cafeteria on the first floor of the lab, Kreber ordered a cup of coffee, sat by the window, opened his laptop for work, and habitually logged in to his mailbox to look at unread emails.

"Invitation to review?"

Looking at the email lying in the mailbox, Kreber's eyebrows picked up with interest.

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

In addition, compared with the mainstream tokmak device, stellarum is an "unpopular" research direction, and there are not many research institutions engaged in this research in the world.

He remembered that the last time he was invited to review a journal under the American Physical Society was five years ago.

Originally, he didn't plan to use the break between meetings to review the manuscript, but Kreber couldn't resist the curiosity in his heart and clicked on the paper.

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

Mathematical model of plasma turbulence?

Seeing the abstract part of the paper, Professor Kreber raised an eyebrow.

Image-only model?

But it doesn't seem like it.

After reading the abstract, Professor Kreber continued to look at the main part, and when he saw the large formula in the paper, his brow twitched violently.

As an engineer, knowledge of mathematics is essential, but these calculations in the paper are still beyond the scope of his knowledge reserves, and it makes his scalp tingle when he looks at them.

Speaking of which, it's just a visualization model, does it need to use such an esoteric mathematical method?

Just when Professor Kreber was puzzled by this matter, this "style" that descriptive language could save suddenly reminded him of a person.

Directly flipped to the position of the author of the paper, and the corners of Kreber's mouth twitched along with his eyebrows.

Sure enough, it's this guy......

Shaking his head with a smile and completely giving up, Kreber directly skipped those complicated calculations and looked at the mathematical model in the conclusion part.

He admits that he was a little unimpressed at first.

Gradually, however, the more he looked down, the more solemn the look on his face became.

Suddenly, a flash of joy flashed on his face, and he couldn't wait to reach for the phone in his pocket.

"Egger, I'll send you an email in a moment and print out the paper for me!"

Iger is his office assistant, and he delegates the general schedule, printing, and other chores to him.

In principle, it is not good to publish papers that have not yet been officially published in advance, but if it is only internal communication, it is not a violation of the principle.

After all, for many reviewers, it is not uncommon for them to exchange ideas with their peers with good academic reputations if they see a particularly good manuscript that happens to cover a field they don't know about.

Egger: "Yes sir, can you tell me how many you need?" ”

"Print as many copies as there are in the afternoon meeting!"