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Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
From: Robert F. Heeter <rfheeter@princeton.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.answers,news.answers
Subject: Conventional Fusion FAQ Glossary Part 23/26 (W)
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Summary: Fusion energy represents a promising alternative to 
         fossil fuels and nuclear fission for world energy 
         production. This Glossary is a compendium of Frequently Used
         Terms in Plasma Physics and Fusion Energy Research.  Refer
         to the FAQ on Conventional Fusion for more detailed info
         about topics in fusion research.  This Glossary does NOT 
         discuss unconventional forms of fusion (like Cold Fusion).
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===============================================================
Glossary Part 23:  Terms beginning with "W"

FREQUENTLY USED TERMS IN CONVENTIONAL FUSION RESEARCH 
AND PLASMA PHYSICS

Edited by Robert F. Heeter, rfheeter@pppl.gov

Guide to Categories:
 
* = plasma/fusion/energy vocabulary
& = basic physics vocabulary 
> = device type or machine name
# = name of a constant or variable
! = scientists 
@ = acronym
% = labs & political organizations
$ = unit of measurement

The list of Acknowledgements is in Part 0 (intro).
==================================================================

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

# W:  Chemical symbol for Tungsten

@ W-7AS, W-7X:  See Wendelstein entry

* Wall Conditioning:  Describes a class of procedures used to
control the composition of materials adsorbed onto the walls of
a plasma device.  Conditioning is important because material from
the walls can create impurities in the plasma, and these
impurities typically degrade plasma performance.  See also
boronization, impurity control, electron cyclotron discharge
cleaning.

* Wall Loading:  Fusion reactor thermal output power divided
by the area of the wall facing the plasma.  (Neutron wall
loading is 4/5 of the total for D-T fusion.)

& Waste, Radioactive:  See Radioactive Waste.

& Wavelength:  The length of a single cycle of a wave; usually
measured from crest-to-crest.  For electromagnetic waves, the
wavelength determines the type (radio, infrared, visible, 
ultraviolet, X-Ray, gamma-ray) of radiation; in the case of 
visible light, wavelength determines the color of the light.

& Waves:

& Weak (Nuclear) Force:

> Wendelstein: A family of stellarators built in Garching, Germany.  
The machine currently in operation is Wendelstein-7AS (aka W-7AS).  
Wendelstein ("spiral rock") is a craggy Bavarian mountain;  some of 
W-1 through W-6 were built, some were just paper studies;  AS stands 
for "advanced stellarator" and refers on the physical side to an 
attempt to minimize neoclassical effects (see entry for Neo-classical 
Diffusion) such as the bootstrap current (see entry), and on the 
technical side to the use of out-of-plane coils as an alternative to 
linked coils.  W-7X, a much larger, superconducting stellarator based 
on the same concepts has been proposed to be built by the European 
Union in Greifswald, on the north coast of Germany.

* Whistler:  A wave in a plasma which propagates parallel to the
magnetic field produced by currents outside the plasma at a frequency
less than that of the electron cyclotron frequency, and which is
circularly polarized, rotating in the same sense as the electrons
in the plasma (about the magnetic field); also known as the
electron cyclotron wave.  Whistlers are so-named because of their
characteristic descending audio-frequency tone, which is a result
of the dispersion relation for the wave (higher frequencies
travel somewhat faster).  This tone was frequently picked  
up during World War I by large ground-loop antennas (which were 
actually being used to spy on enemy field telephone signals).
 
% Wisconsin - See University of Wisconsin-Madison