Physics design point of high-field stellarator reactors

The ongoing development of electromagnets based on High Temperature Superconductors has led to the conceptual exploration of high-magnetic-field fusion reactors of the tokamak type, operating at on-axis fields above 10 T. In this work we explore the consequences of the potential future availability of high-field three-dimensional electromagnets on the physics design point of a stellarator reactor. We find that, when an increase in the magnetic field strength $B$ is used to maximally reduce the device linear size $R\sim B^{-4/3}$ (with otherwise fixed magnetic geometry), the physics design point is largely independent of the chosen field strength/device size. A similar degree of optimization is to be imposed on the magnetohydrodynamic, transport and fast ion confinement properties of the magnetic configuration of that family of reactor design points. Additionally, we show that the family shares an invariant operation map of fusion power output as a function of the auxiliary power and relative density variation. The effects of magnetic field over-engineering and the $R(B)$ scaling of design points with constant neutron wall loading are also inspected. In this study we use geometric parameters characteristic of the \emph{helias} reactor, but most results apply to other stellarator configurations.

Clear evidence against superconductivity in hydrides under high pressure

The Meissner effect, magnetic field expulsion, is a hallmark of superconductivity. Associated with it, superconductors exclude applied magnetic fields. Recently Minkov et al. presented experimental results reportedly showing “definitive evidence of the Meissner effect” in sulfur hydride and lan-thanum hydride under high pressure1. Instead, we show here that the evidence presented in that paper does not support the case for superconductivity in these materials. Together with experimental evidence discussed in earlier papers, we argue that this clearly indicates that hydrides under pressure are not high temperature superconductors.

Commercial gigahertz-class NMR magnets

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a wide-spread analytical technique which is used in a large range of different fields, such as quality control, food analysis, material science and structural biology. In the widest sense, NMR is an analytical technique to determine the structure of molecules. At the time of writing this manuscript, commercial NMR spectrometers with a proton resonance frequency ≥ 900 MHz are only available from Bruker. In 2019, Bruker installed the first 1.1 GHz (25.8 T) NMR spectrometer at the St. Jude Children Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, followed by the installation of the first 1.2 GHz (28.2 T) NMR spectrometer at the University of Florence in Italy in 2020. These were the first commercial NMR spectrometers operating at magnetic fields in excess of what can be achieved with conventional low temperature superconductors, and which depend on high temperature superconductors to generate the required magnetic field. In this paper, the requirements on commercial NMR magnets are discussed and the history of high-field NMR magnets is reviewed. Bruker’s R&D program for 1.1 and 1.2 GHz NMR magnets and spectrometers will be described, and some of the key properties of these first commercial NMR magnets with high-temperature superconductors are reported.

Numerical Approach in Superconductivity: An Advanced Study

The dependence of the critical temperature $T_c$ of high-temperature superconductors of various families on their composition and structure is proposed. A clear dependence of the critical temperature of high-temperature superconductors (hydrides, Hg- and Y-based cuprates) on the serial number of the constituent elements, their valence and crystal lattice structure has been revealed. For cuprates, it is shown that it is possible to obtain even higher temperatures of superconducting transitions at normal pressure by implanting mercury atoms into the crystal lattice of cuprate.

Molecular dynamics simulations of radiation damage in YBa2Cu3O7

The advent of High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) with high field strengths offers the possibility of building smaller, cheaper magnetically confined fusion reactors. However, bombardment by high energy neutrons ejected from the fusion reaction may damage the HTS tapes and impair their operation. Recreating the conditions present in an operational fusion reactor is experimentally challenging, therefore, this work uses molecular dynamics simulations to understand how radiation modifies the underlying crystal structure of YBa2Cu3O7. To facilitate the simulations a new potential was developed that allowed exchange of Cu ions between the two symmetrically distinct sites without modifying the structure. Radiation damage cascades predict the formation of amorphous regions surrounded by regions decorated with Cu and O defects found in the CuO-chains. The simulations suggest that the level of recombination that occurs is relatively low, resulting in a large number of remnant defects and that there is a no substantial temperature effect.

Plasmon Mediation of Charge Pairing in High Temperature Superconductors

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of a nonzero momentum Cooper pair constitutes a composite boson or simply a boson. We demonstrated that the quantum coherence of the two-component BEC (boson and fermion condensates) is controlled by plasmons. It has been proposed that plasmons, observed in both electron-doped and hole-doped cuprates, originates from the long-range Coulomb screening, where the transfer momentum q ⟶ 0 . We further show that the screening mediates boson-fermion pairing at condensate state. While only about 1 % of plasmon energy mediates the charge pairing, most of the plasmon energy is used to overcome the modes that compete against superconductivity such as phonons, charge density waves, antiferromagnetism, and damping effects. Additionally, the dependence of frequency of plasmons on the material of a superconductor is also explored. This study gives a quantum explanation of the modes that enhance and those that inhibit superconductivity. The study informs the nature of electromagnetic radiations (EMR) that can enhance the critical temperature of such materials.

Recovering the performance of irradiated high temperature superconductors for use in fusion magnets

The magnets confining the plasma in future fusion devices will be exposed to a significant destructive flux of fast neutrons. Particularly, in cost efficient compact reactor designs, the degradation of the superconductor becomes an issue and directly impacts the commercial viability. We report on the influence of neutron radiation on the superconducting transition temperature, Tc, and the critical current density, jc, and discuss possibilities to counteract the degradation by thermal treatments. We found that the degradation in Tc and jc are closely related to each other, likely by the expected loss of superfluid density; thus, Tc is a very useful indicator for the magnets' degradation. It increases linearly with annealing temperature and around 25 % of the decrease can be recovered by annealing at 150 °C and about 60 % at 400 °C, which would more than double the magnet’s life time. However, a loss of oxygen has to be impeded in the latter case.

Emergent gauge symmetries: making symmetry as well as breaking it

Gauge symmetries play an essential role in determining the interactions of particle physics. Where do they come from? Might the gauge symmetries of the Standard Model unify in the ultraviolet or might they be emergent in the infrared, below some large scale close to the Planck scale? Emergent gauge symmetries are important in quantum many-body systems in quantum phases associated with long range entanglement and topological order, e.g. they arise in high temperature superconductors, with string-net condensation and in the A-phase of superfluid 3 He. String-nets and superfluid 3 He exhibit emergent properties similar to the building blocks of particle physics. Emergent gauge symmetries also play an important role in simulations of quantum field theories. This article discusses recent thinking on possible emergent gauge symmetries in particle physics, commenting also on Higgs phenomena and the vacuum energy or cosmological constant puzzle in emergent gauge systems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Quantum technologies in particle physics’.

Stripe order enhanced superconductivity in the Hubbard model

Unidirectional (“stripe”) charge density wave order has now been established as a ubiquitous feature in the phase diagram of the cuprate high-temperature superconductors, where it generally competes with superconductivity. Nonetheless, on theoretical grounds it has been conjectured that stripe order (or other forms of “optimal” inhomogeneity) may play an essential positive role in the mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity. Here, we report density matrix renormalization group studies of the Hubbard model on long four- and six-leg cylinders, where the hopping matrix elements transverse to the long direction are periodically modulated—mimicking the effect of putative period 2 stripe order. We find that even modest amplitude modulations can enhance the long-distance superconducting correlations by many orders of magnitude and drive the system into a phase with a substantial spin gap and superconducting quasi–long-range order with a Luttinger exponent, Ksc∼1.