CURRICULUM VITAE
PERSONAL DATA
NAME : ADDRESS : (office) Association EURATOM-MEdC National Plasma and Fusion
Laboratory , P.O.Box MG-36, Str. Atomistilor No. 409,
Magurele, Phone : (40) 21 457 45 60 Fax : (40) 21 457 42 43 (home) Str. Turda,
121, Bl.5, Sc.B, Ap.78, Sector 1,
Phone : (40) 21 224 12 36 E-mail: spineanu@ifin.nipne.ro Official web page : http://www.ifa-mg.ro/euratom Personal web page: http://florin.spineanu.free.fr
DATE OF BIRTH : September 14, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH :
SEX : Male
MARITAL STATUS : Married (with Madalina Vlad); no children
NATIONALITY : Romanian
LANGUAGES : French, English.
EDUCATION
PhD :
Title: "Functional methods in the study of plasma turbulence"
Supervision - Professor Ioan-Iovit Popescu, Member of the
Faculty of Mathematics,
Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest (1972-1977); degree in plasma physics with a grade point average over 5 years of 99.6% (obtaining the first).
EMPLOYMENT
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Since October 2008 I am the Head of the Research Unit of the Association EURATOM – MEdC Romania
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I have been employed by the
Département de Recherche sur la Fusion Controlée, Commissariat à l’Energie
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Since 1981, I have a permanent
position as researcher in the Plasma and Fusion Laboratory of the National Institute of Laser, Plasma and
Radiation
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1977-1981 : I worked as
physicist in the research department of the Romanian Optical Entreprize,
Representative
activities:
1) Member of the Steering
Committee of the European Fusion Development Agreement, (EFDA) (since Oct.2008)
2) Representative of the
Romanian Ministry of Education and Research to the Consultative Committee for
the EURATOM Specific Research and Training Programme in the Field of Nuclear
Energy (Fusion) - (CCE-FU), (since Oct. 2008)
3) Fusion Physics Committee
of the EURATOM Association Agreement (until 2003).
4) External Expert of the
European Commission Research Directorate for Evaluation and Assessement
a) FP5 : RTN2 – 2001 Human
Resaerch Potential and the Socio-Economic knowledge base
b) FP6 :
i)
RTD Research and Training Network (RTN) projects Mobility-1 2002;
ii) Marie-Curie Actions RTN
2004
5)
Referee for Journals of the
Member of the American Physical Society under the Matching Membership Programme (1990-1997) and from 2006-.
Member of the
EXPERIENCE
·
Stationary states of fluids and plasmas and planetary atmosphere
I have developed an original approach for
the 2D plasma and fluids, based on the classical field formulation of the vorticity
field. This approach is distinct and complimentary to the usual one : the
latter is based on conservation laws (density, momentum, energy, etc.) while
the new one leads to an action functional whose extrema defines the dynamics.
This allowed us to derive a differential equation for the streamfunction in a
plasma/fluid evolving in two-dimensional geometry according to the
Charney-Hasegawa-Mima dynamics. We have shown that the coherent states attained
by plasma/fluids at relaxation have the same nature as solitons and instantons,
i.e. they have the property of self-duality. The equation derived by us is at
present the only one able to describe the stationary states of 2D coherent
flows in plasma and planetary atmosphere , being the equivalent of the sinh-Poisson
equation for the Euler fluids.
Solving this equation numerically we find results close to the experiments
and numerical simulations.
The applications developed to date: tokamak
flows, plasma vortices, Navier-Stokes fluids, planetary atmopshere (tropical
cyclone), crystals of vortices in non-neutral plasmas.
We developed, on the basis of this equation, a set of scaling laws connecting
the properties of the tropical cyclone. They work very well for observed data
of known hurricanes: Andrew, Katrina, etc. A paper has been published in 2009
in Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics.
· Application of this approach to particular tokamak problems.
We have developed a model for the density pinch based on the concentration of vorticity towards the tokamak axis, a dynamics that can be derived from the new approach.
We have shown that there are quasi-stationary states with distinct radial distribution of vorticity, which seem to correspond to the L respectively H states. We argued that the LH transition is governed by two elements: energy input and vorticity input. We obtained numerical results for the radial electric field in H state which compare well with the experiment.
I have extended the classical ideal Euler fluid description to a field-theoretical framework with the structure of Yang-Mills gauge theory (2003). I proved that the asymptotic relaxed states of fluids have the property of self-duality and I have provided the first pure analytical derivation of the sinh-Poisson equation obeyed by the stream function.
· Zonal Flows in tokamak.
In 2003-2004 in collaboration with M. Vlad, K. Itoh, H. Sanuki and S.-I. Itoh I have examined the pole dynamics of the Flierl-Petviashvili equation and we have identified an exact solution. This has the geometry of the zonal flows in tokamak and correctly reproduces data from experiments and numerical simulation. The stability of this solution is also studied.
· Statistical physics of turbulence consiting of random waves and coherent vortices
I have developed a systematic method to calculate the irreducible correlations of a field consisting of coherent structures in a background turbulence. The method is based on the semiclassical calculation of the generating functional and uses the perturbed Inverse Scattering Transform for soliton-like structures.
· Spontaneous generation of tokamak plasma rotation
Using the geometrico-algebraic method for exact integrable equations on periodic domain I have proved that a particular solution of the Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation is unstable and evloves to a soliton solution. This has a practical application, since the solutions correspond to the diffusion fluxes in the poloidal section of a tokamak. The instability generates plasma rotation. The method required the mapping of the dynamics on the structure of a hyperelliptic Riemann surface, a basic procedure, plus the study of the perturbed spectrum, for stability.
· Self-organization at criticality (since 1994)
Using Dynamic Renormalization Group methods I have calculated critical exponents for a nonlinear model describing plasma temperature in the presence of random external fluctuations. I have developed analytical and numerical methods to explain the experimental results showing intermittent behaviour of the thermal flux at the plasma edge. The original ideas in our models are: fluctuation in the parameter space of the limit of stability of linear plasma modes; and non-diffusive contributions to transport.
·
Theoretical studies of turbulence and stochastic processes with
applications to the anomalous transport in plasma (since 1985) :
- In 1988 I and Dr. M.Vlad have proposed a functional integral approach to plasma turbulence, based on the idea of replacing the statistical averaging with a functional integration on the space of stochastic particle trajectories. The functional measure on this space reflects its structure determined by the random processes (noise). We have applied this method to the study of the particles in stochastic magnetic field, obtaining diffusion coefficients in various regimes. In another set of applications of this method, using the formalism of the field theory and Feynman diagrams, we have obtained in a systematic way analytical results for a broad class of stochastic processes and random walks, including processes with fractional statistics (Levy flights).
- I have studied the plasma drift instability in the presence of a randomly fluctuating electric field.
- In cooperation with Prof.R. Balescu from Universite Libre de Bruxelles and with Dr. J.H.Misguich from CE Cadarache, I have worked on various problems related to stochastic magnetic field and magnetic turbulence in confined plasmas, using Langevin models. The statistical properties of the magnetic fluctuations in tokamak plasma have been studied, and diffusion coefficients have been determined.
·
Numerical simulations of tokamak plasma evolution (1981-1989) :
Computer codes. I have developed (together with Madalina Vlad) a system of connected codes for simulation of plasma and field evolution in tokamak geometry. The time evolution of the radial profiles of the plasma parameters (electron and ion temperatures, density, toroidal electric field, current density, poloidal magnetic field, radial drift velocity) are determined. Also included are separate modules for neutral atoms and for impurity evolution (oxygen, carbon and heavy ions) and for additional RF-heating at LH, electron cyclotron and magnetoacoustic frequencies.
Numerical
studies. The system of computer codes was used for:
(1) the direct problem: studies of anomalous transport starting from
theoretical models of the transport coefficients; (2) the inverse problem of
plasma transport, consisting in the determination of empirical transport
coefficients in order to numerically reproduce the experimental data (tokamak
CASTOR, Prague). I have made (with Madalina Vlad) a detalied study of the instability-induced anomalous transport
for the plasma conditions corresponding to a particular tokamak (CASTOR).
Simulations have also been made for T-10
(Inst.of Atomic Phys. "Kurchatov",
·
Instantons physics, integrability and coherent structures.
Since 1987 I have made studies of instantons and topological field theory. These cover mainly differential geometry and topological but also physical aspects. The original intention was to develop a new model of the intermittent behaviour in weakly dissipative systems, starting from the original idea that it consists of changes of topological properties of the system. In this form, the work has been motivated by the statistical intermittency in fluids and plasma, but this problem seems to be much more fundamental. The main objective was to identify for specific differential equations classes of solutions of distinct topological nature and find extended spaces where instantons can connect them. The framework is necessarly the Supersymmetric Self-Dual Yang-Mills equations for which reductive technics exist which reproduce soliton-type equations. The simplest models reduce to the cohomology of hyperelliptic Riemann surfaces. In general (as in models originating in string scattering theory) it is necessary to study the singularities of multiply-sheeted, ramnified coverings of the compactified complex plane. This study is in progress with one only achivement: explanation of the singularity structure of some systems exhibiting intermittency.
·
Fluid representation of quantum mechanics (1990-1992) :
Starting from an idea of Dr. M.Vlad, we
have found that interesting results can be obtained by applying the methods of
fluid dynamics to quantum potential representation of quantum mechanics. Two
papers have been published.
· Fluid dynamics (numerical simulations) (1988-1990) :
- To explain the 2-D periodic structures observed on solid samples after the irradiation with high intensity laser beams, we have proposed to consider the Marangoni-Benard convective instability in the molten layer. With Madalina Vlad and Sorin Ciobanu (doctorand) I have developed a numerical model and code for the simulation of natural convection in viscous fluids with temperature-dependent surface tension, for arbitrary surface deformation. The Navier-Stokes (in conservative form) and heat equations are solved by the Marker and Cell method. Local pressure corrections are used to preserve the divergence-free condition of the flow. Eulerian grid is used with a careful description of the free surface.
·
Research in optics (1977-1981):
I have made numerical models and codes for optical system design and for analysing optical systems' quality in the design phase. I have developed codes for the determination of the spot diagram and of the Point Spread Function with calculation of the contrast.The codes work with spherical (with or without eccentricity) surfaces and with surfaces of arbitrary shape given in analytical or numerical form. The practical purpose was to determine the acceptable limits for the mechanical errors appearing in the processing phase.
· Research in teoretical atomic physics (1977):
My dissertation as a graduate student involved the numerical determination of the nonrelativistic electron wave function in multi-electron atoms, (with given Hartree-Fock potential) and application to calculation of cross-sections.
SUPERVISING: Supervised 7 graduate students in plasma physics
PUBLICATION SUMMARY:
- Articles in refereed international journals : 70
-
Electronic preprints (arxiv.org) at
- Papers in refereed international conference proceedings : 97
- Impact factor divided by the numbers of authors: 47
COLLABORATIONS:
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Equipe
Dynamique des Systemes Complexes, Universite de Provence, Marseille,
France (since 2005)
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National Institute for
Fusion Science (
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Association EURATOM-ENEA
Frascati (
- Departement de Recherches sur la Fusion Controllee (CEA-Cadarache, France), since 1992; “Contrat de collaboration” with the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, France 1997-1999, extended over the period 1999-2001. Collaboration in progress under the EURATOM Association Agreement, starting with the year 2000.
- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Faculté des Sciences, (Bruxelles, Belgium), since 1992. Collaboration in progress under the EURATOM Association Agreement, starting with the year 2000.;
-
-
Research
work in foreign institutes :
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Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
FOM
Institute of Plasma Physics, Nieuwegein, The Netherlands (Mars-May 1993, 3
months)
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Université
-
Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique - Cadarache, France
(Mars-August 1994, 6 months)
-
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium (Septeber-October
1994, 2 months)
-
Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique - Cadarache, France
(June 1995 – June 1996, 12 months)
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Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium (Mars-April 1997,
2 months)
-
Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium (November 2001, 1
month)
-
Commissariat
a l’Energie Atomique -
-
National
Institute for Fusion Science,
-
Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique - Cadarache, France
(September-October 2003, 2 months)
-
-
-
Université de Provence, Marseille, France (May-June 2005,
1.5 months)
-
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Université de Provence, Marseille, France (March 2006, 1
month)
-
-
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Université de Provence, Marseille, France (May-June 2007,
2 months) (Invited professor)
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Université de Provence, Marseille, France (October 2007 –
April 2008, 7 months)
Research grants
- Romanian Ministry of Education, within the Euratom research contracts : since 2000.
- International Atomic Energy Agency, Research contract CF/4362 (1991).
- Grant of the European Programme COST , Bruxelles 1993.
-
Grant
of the Ministère de la Science et de
l’Espace, France, 1992.
- NATO Linkage Grant CRG.LG 971484, 1998-2000.
- NATO Linkage Grant PST.CLG 977397, 2000-2002.