The Plasma Debugger

We built a "Plasma Debugger", a tool to reconstruct the state of the FRC plasma in the TAE Technologies' experimental machine C­2W. This generalized Bayesian inference approach combines data from magnetic sensors, fast cameras, FIR interferometer, Thomson Scattering system, Bremsstrahlung measurements and neutral beams shine­-through SEE detectors. It then reconstructs electron density, temperature and bulk plasma currents, with confidence intervals. Computation takes hundreds of CPUs and is performed in the cloud, with results showing up in the plasma machine control room within several minutes of the experiment. The display shows time evolution of the basic plasma properties, giving machine operators additional insight into the plasma behavior.