• What is the Glossary, and where can I find it?
• What is included in the Glossary?
• What sources were used in compiling the Glossary?

Plasma physics and fusion energy researchers have evolved a colorful and extensive vocabulary. Although these specialized terms greatly facilitate discussion among those who understand the language, they can impede discussions between experts and nonexperts, and even between experts in different subfields. Several efforts have been made over the years to break down these communication barriers by providing clear and succinct definitions of key terms. The Glossary of Frequently Used Terms in Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy Research takes the next step and uses modern information technology to provide the most extensive *compilation* of plasma terminology from all available sources.

The full Glossary comprises several thousand terms, of which over 1000 are fully defined and nearly all the others at least direct the reader to reference texts. The full Glossary was posted as ASCII text in 26 parts to the Newsgroups from 1994-1999. After a 3-year hiatus from 1996-1999, the Glossary is now being actively updated again. Since the Glossary is now being maintained in database format and is fully available on the World Wide Web, it no longer needs to be posted to the Newsgroups in its entirety.

The official permanent URL for the full Glossary is now http://FusEdWeb.pppl.gov/Glossary/glossary.html

More information about the Glossary is given below.

The terms listed in the full Glossary include the scientific vocabulary of the disciplines associated with plasma physics and fusion energy research, the names of various research facilities, experimental machines and devices used, the names of prominent researchers in the field, the various funding authorities active in the field, several key mathematical symbols in common use, and the acronyms frequently used as shorthand for some of the above.

This Glossary now covers all areas of plasma physics and "conventional" fusion research, including magnetic confinement, inertial confinement, thermonuclear, muon-catalyzed, and other types of fusion, but not "Cold Fusion". However, it is not yet complete, particularly regarding inertial confinement fusion and non-fusion areas of plasma physics. Any contributions are appreciated.

The Glossary began in 1994 with an initial list of terms supplied by Jim Day. To this were added some comments from various responses to the first draft posted to the newsgroup. The Editor then incorporated terms from various published glossaries from PPPL and the U.S. Department of Energy. Acronyms, machine names, and names of important scientists were added as they came up. Categories were added for research and funding/political agencies, a broader base of basic science terms was built up, and additional plasma terms were included. In the summer of 1995 the Glossary benefitted from work done by Joshua Jones and John Wright to expand the terminology lists by merging in terms from the indexes of major plasma reference texts, and to evolve a useful Web version with browse and search capabilities.

The terms and definitions in the Glossary represent a collection of contributions from numerous sources. The new Glossary database includes the ability to have acknowledgements for each individual definition, but for existing terms we must rely upon the blanket acknowledgements given below. In cases where only a single textual source was used a citation is generally given along with the entry. The bibliograhic data for the various sources is given below.

List of Keyed Index References:

(These are randomly ordered.)

1. Roth, J. Reece. _Introduction to Fusion Energy_, Ibis Publishing, Charlottesville, VA, 1986.
2. Herman, Robin. _Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy_, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
3. Shaw, E.N. _The JET Joint Undertaking_
4. Gross, Robert A. _Fusion Energy_, Wiley & Sons, New York, 1984.
5. Stix, Thomas Howard. _Waves in Plasmas_, American Institute of Physics, New York, 1992.
6. Friedberg, Jeffrey P. _Ideal Magnetohydrodynamics_, Plenum Press, New York, 1987.
7. White, Roscoe B. _Theory of Tokamak Plasmas_, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1989.
8. Hazeltine, R.D. and Meiss, J.D. _Plasma Confinement_. Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA, 1992.
9. Nicholson, Dwight R. _Introduction to Plasma Theory_, Krieger Publishing Co., Malabar, FL, 1992.
10. Miyamoto, Kenro. _Plasma Physics for Nuclear Fusion_, revised English language edition. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1989.
11. Bromberg, Joan Lisa. _Fusion: Science, Politics, and the Invention of a New Energy Source_, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982.
12. Dendy, Richard, ed. _Plasma Physics: an Introductory Course_, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Other Printed Materials Used (or to be used) as References / Sources:

Chen, Francis F.

_Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Volume 1: Plasma Physics_, 2nd edition. Plenum Press, New York, 1984.

Davidson, Ronald C.

_Physics of Nonneutral Plasmas_, Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA, 1990.

Duderstadt, James J., and Moses, Gregory A.

_Inertial Confinement Fusion_, Wiley & Sons, New York, 1982.

Herman, Robin.

_Fusion: The Search for Endless Energy_, Cambridge University Press, 1990. I borrowed a few terms from her glossary; these are cited as (from Herman). (Many of these terms apparently derived from the PPPL glossary I also used.)

Hutchinson, Ian H.

_Principles of Plasma Diagnostics_, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

ITER Glossary

(Possible future reference.)

Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy.

_Glossary of Fusion Energy_, pub. 1985. This was utilized extensively, with many entries incorporated directly (with some editorial changes) into this glossary.

Parks, George K.

_Physics of Space Plasmas: an Introduction_, Addison-Wesley, Redwood City, CA, 1991.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

_Glossary of Fusion Terms_ This was a sizeable list of terms prepared by PPPL staff at some point. It was consulted in many cases early on, was blatantly paraphrased in some, and was quoted and cited in others.

Stacey, Weston M, Jr.

_Fusion: An Introduction to the Physics and Technology of Magnetic Confinement Fusion_, Wiley & Sons, New York, 1984.

Wesson, John.

_Tokamaks_, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.

Yamanaka, C.

_Introduction to Laser Fusion_, Harwood Academic Publishers, Chur, Switzerland, 1991.

Acknowledgements - Format:

! = someone I believe is a scientist
* = people who are not scientists so far as I know, organizations, etc.

Acknowledgements: Individuals and Contributions

! Jake Blanchard, blanchard@engr.wisc.edu - suggested we have a 
     list of acronyms too.
! Arthur Carlson, awc@ipp-garching.mpg.de - supplied additional 
     definitions, made corrections / amplifications / revisions to
     earlier definitions.
! Edward Chao, ehchao@theory.pppl.gov - info on LANL fusion research,
     additions and corrections to various definitions.
! Albert Chou, albert@seas.ucla.edu - supplied additional 
     definitions, made corrections / amplifications / revisions to 
     earlier definitions.
! John Cobb, johncobb@uts.cc.utexas.edu - lots o' definitions.
! James Crotinger, jac@gandalf.llnl.gov - additional definitions,
     quality control, and comments on the usefulness of the FUT.
* Jim Day, jim.day@support.com - initial list of terms, additional
     definitions, modifications to earlier definitions.
! Steve Fairfax, Fairfax@cmod.pfc.mit.edu - additional definitions
     from the Alcator weekly reports.
* Joshua Jones, jjones@pppl.gov - Added terms from many many book
     indices, and incorporated corrections to many other terms.
! Paul M. Koloc, pmk@prometheus.UUCP - quality control, some entries
! Emilio Martines, martines@pdigi3.igi.pd.cnr.it - quality control,
     reversed-field entries & information.
! Tobin Munsat, tmunsat@pppl.gov - definitions
! Robert Nachtrieb, nachtrieb@pfc.mit.edu - numerous acronyms
* Vicki Rosenzweig, vr%acmcr.uucp@murphy.com - Proofreading entries
* Mike Ross, mikeross@almaden.ibm.com - additional Livermore info
     and corrections to some entries.
* Richard Schroeppel, rcs@cs.arizona.edu - suggestions/corrections to
     many definitions.
! Philip Snyder, pbsnyder@theory.pppl.gov - corrections to 
     definitions.
! Paul Stek, Stek@cmod.pfc.mit.edu - additional definitions
!? Mitchell Swarz, mica@world.std.com - supplied additional 
     definitions / corrections and revisions to existing definitions.
* United States Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy - 
     for funding fusion research and making everything possible

# This file may be freely distributed provided the revision date is retained and I am cited as the editor. #

# Any and all errors are solely my responsibility. #