Welcome to the SUMTRAIC website

Update: Due to the uncertainties brought by Czech and other countries restrictions, SUMTRAIC is canceled this year. 

Important information: Due to the worldwide situation, SUMTRAIC will not be held at the end of August. Instead, the event has been postponed to the beginning of December and will be merged to another student event (called EMTRAIC) organised by the IPP.

What is SUMTRAIC?

SUMTRAIC is a 2-weeks experimental SUMmer* TRAIning Course in plasma physics and, in particular, in magnetic confinement fusion devices (tokamaks). It is organised annually at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Czech Republic (IPP CAS) in Prague.

*this year winter.

What will I do there?

The centre of gravity of this school lays in the direct involvement of the participants in the processing and analysis of experimental data from the COMPASS tokamak or even in the participation in the experiments, when compatible with the experimental program.

• Only one day will be devoted to lectures (how to access data, introduction to the COMPASS tokamak, python lecture...)
• The rest of the time, you will be paired in a group and supervised by one scientist. You will work on a real and relevant scientific topic.
• You will have to present your 2-weeks work the last day of the event in a 10 min presentation

→ You will get a full experience of what a real scientist in nuclear fusion does

A word about the COMPASS tokamak?

COMPASS is one of the leading devices among smaller tokamaks in the world, with an experimental program focused on plasma-wall interaction, edge plasma physics, H-mode and runaway electrons. Thanks to its flexibility, it suits perfectly for student education. This year is probably the last year of its operation in the Czech Republic, before a new tokamak (called COMPASS-U) is built. See here for more information on the COMPASS device.

The tokamak COMPASS at the IPP Prague.

When is it?

This year, SUMTRAIC will be organised from November 30th to December 11th and will be focused on data analysis of the latest experiments at COMPASS.
Deadline for application is September 28th and applicants can expect an answer by the end of September.

What about money?

• Accommodation of participants is covered by the IPP of Prague
• A symbolic fee to cover the administrative expenses is set to 50€ per student.
• Traveling expenses to Prague is up to the participants.

What do I need to do to apply?

Applicants are requested to provide a CV, a cover letter and a reference letter. Both the CV and the cover letter should reflect their knowledge about plasma physics and fusion, their level in English, their skills in programming and which programming language and their motivation to participate to the event.

2019 as an example:

The topics of the SUMTRAIC 2019 reflects the various and advanced fields of reasearch of COMPASS and have included:

• Measurement of Ti with probes,
• Heat flux comparison using probes and IR camera,
• Investigation of divertor probe asymmetry with fieldline mapping,
• Fast temperature measurement during ELM using conditional averaging technique,
• Impurity seeding experiment in COMPASS,
• Shoulder formation study in COMPASS,
• Measurement of edge plasma parameters by vertical reciprocating probe,
• Ion temperature measurement with fast and slow swept technique,
• Measurement of Ti/Te ratio in the SOL of COMPASS,
• Analysis of MHD mode locking using n=2 error field on COMPASS,
• Phase difference of mode locking position with respect to external error field,
• Measurement of hard X-rays intensity generated by runaway electrons.

The 2019 participants in front of the COMPASS tokamak

Similar topics will be available this year, depending on the scientific COMPASS program. The final list of topics for SUMTRAIC 2020 will be adapted to the number of participants and will be released shortly before the school starts.

→ Here find some feedbacks from some of the last year participants