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An accelerated fusion energy development program, a fast-track approach, requires proceeding with a nuclear and materials testing program in parallel with research on burning plasmas, ITER. A Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) would address many of the key issues that need to be addressed prior to DEMO, including breeding tritium and completing the fuel cycle, qualifying nuclear materials for high fluence, developing suitable materials for the plasma-boundary interface, and demonstrating power extraction. The Advanced Tokamak (AT) is a strong candidate for an FNSF as a consequence of its mature physics base, capability to address the key issues, and the direct relevance to an attractive target power plant. The standard aspect ratio provides space for a solenoid, assuring robust plasma current initiation,and for an inboard blanket, assuring robust tritium breeding ratio (TBR) >1 for FNSF tritium self-sufficiency and building of inventory needed to start up DEMO. An example design point gives a moderate sized Cu-coil device with R/a = 2.7 m/0.77 κ = 2.3, BT= 5.4 T, IP = 6.6 MA, βN = 2.75, Pfus = 127 MW. The modest bootstrap fraction of fBS = 0.55 provides an opportunity to develop steady state with sufficient current drive for adequate control. Lastly,more » proceeding with a FNSF in parallel with ITER provides a strong basis to begin construction of DEMO upon the achievement of Q ~ 10 in ITER.« less

Density fluctuations, δn n ≲ 20%, were observed to have no effect on the classical diffusion of a collisional helium plasma across a poloidal octupole field with an additional weak toroidal field. The implication of these results on tokamak scattering experiments is discussed.