Justin Ball
EPFL SB SPC-TH
PPB 117 (Bâtiment PPB)
Station 13
1015 Lausanne
+41 21 693 19 12
+41 21 693 39 18
Office:
PPB 117
EPFL
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SB
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SPC
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SPC-TH
Web site: Web site: https://spc.epfl.ch/
Biography
Dr. Justin Ball is a staff scientist studying theoretical plasma physics and nuclear fusion energy. His research primarily focuses on the effect of plasma shaping on turbulence in tokamaks. He is the principle investigator of the EUROfusion Theory, Simulation, Verification, and Validation project on negative triangularity. Additionally, he is an avid fusion science communicator via magazine articles, lectures, and podcasts. In 2019, he and Jason Parisi published a popular science book titled The Future of Fusion Energy.He holds a Bachelor degree from the University of Michigan and a Master's from MIT, both in Nuclear Engineering. While at MIT, he was a leading designer of the original ARC reactor, which served as the foundation for the startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems and has raised $2 billion to date.
In 2016, he completed a PhD in Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford and received the European Physical Society Plasma Physics PhD Research Award. Previously, he has worked at a nuclear power plant, a nuclear navy research laboratory, and a nuclear weapons laboratory.
Publications
Infoscience publications
Turbulence-generated stepped safety factor profiles in tokamaks with low magnetic shear
Physical Review E. 2025. DOI : 10.1103/958f-qzjf.On the interplay between plasma triangularity and micro-tearing turbulence
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ae1327.On the feasibility of Ohmically heated negative triangularity tokamak power plants
Nuclear Fusion. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ae01bd.Global electromagnetic gyrokinetic simulations of internal transport barriers in reversed-shear tokamaks
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ade1f7.Reducing Turbulent Transport in Tokamaks by Combining Intrinsic Rotation and the Low Momentum Diffusivity Regime
Nuclear Fusion. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ade1ed.A Quasilinear Model for Momentum Transport Including Rotation and Electron-scale Turbulence
PLASMA PHYSICS AND CONTROLLED FUSION. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ade0e9.Electromagnetic instability and turbulence in plasmas with positive and negative triangularity
Physics of Plasmas. 2025. DOI : 10.1063/5.0255557.Numerical study of turbulent eddy self-interaction in tokamaks with low magnetic shear. Part II: Nonlinear simulations
PLASMA PHYSICS AND CONTROLLED FUSION. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ad8dfd.Numerical study of turbulent eddy self-interaction in tokamaks with low magnetic shear. Part I: Linear simulations
PLASMA PHYSICS AND CONTROLLED FUSION. 2025. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ad9058.Gyrokinetic investigation of plasma turbulence self-organization at low magnetic shear in tokamaks
Lausanne, EPFL, 2025. DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-10964.Negative triangularity scenarios: from TCV and AUG experiments to DTT predictions
Nuclear Fusion. 2024. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ad6ea0.Physical insights from the aspect ratio dependence of turbulence in negative triangularity plasmas
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2024. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ad4d1d.Study of impurity C transport and plasma rotation in negative triangularity on the TCV tokamak
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2024. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ad5229.Experiments and gyrokinetic simulations of TCV plasmas with negative triangularity in view of DTT operations
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2024. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/ad4674.Reducing transport via extreme flux-surface triangularity
Nuclear Fusion. 2024. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ad3563.A new quasilinear model for turbulent momentum transport in tokamaks with flow shear and plasma shaping
Nuclear Fusion. 2024. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ad2583.Analysis of edge transport in L-mode negative triangularity TCV discharges
Nuclear Materials and Energy. 2023. DOI : 10.1016/j.nme.2023.101386.Local gyrokinetic simulations of tokamaks with non-uniform magnetic shear
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2023. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/aca715.Ultra long turbulent eddies, magnetic topology, and the triggering of internal transport barriers in tokamaks
Nuclear Fusion. 2023. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/aca213.Study of fast-ion-driven toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes impacting on the global confinement in TCV L-mode plasmas
Frontiers in Physics. 2023. DOI : 10.3389/fphy.2023.1225787.Three-dimensional inhomogeneity of electron-temperature-gradient turbulence in the edge of tokamak plasmas
Nuclear Fusion. 2022. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ac786b.A Gyrokinetic Moment-Based Approach for the Simulation of the Boundary Plasmas in Fusion Devices
PET, Lausanne, SPC, 14-15/09/21.Development of advanced linearized gyrokinetic collision operators using a moment approach
Journal of Plasma Physics. 2021. DOI : 10.1017/S0022377821000830.Effect of collisions on non-adiabatic electron dynamics in ITG-driven microturbulence
Physics Of Plasmas. 2021. DOI : 10.1063/5.0055303.A Gyrokinetic Moment-Based Approach for the Simulation of the Boundary Plasmas in Fusion Devices
PASC, Geneva, 2021-07-07.A non-twisting flux tube for local gyrokinetic simulations
Plasma Physics And Controlled Fusion. 2021. DOI : 10.1088/1361-6587/abf8f4.Toroidal and slab ETG instability dominance in the linear spectrum of JET-ILW pedestals
Nuclear Fusion. 2020. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/abb891.How eigenmode self-interaction affects zonal flows and convergence of tokamak core turbulence with toroidal system size
Journal of Plasma Physics. 2020. DOI : 10.1017/S0022377820000999.Eliminating turbulent self-interaction through the parallel boundary condition in local gyrokinetic simulations
Journal of Plasma Physics. 2020. DOI : 10.1017/S0022377820000197.Maximizing specific energy by breeding deuterium
Nuclear Fusion. 2019. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab394c.Physics research on the TCV tokamak facility: from conventional to alternative scenarios and beyond
Nuclear Fusion. 2019. DOI : 10.1088/1741-4326/ab25cb.Selected publications
| B.F. McMillan, J. Ball, S. Brunner Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 61 (2019) 055006. |
Simulating background shear flow in local gyrokinetic simulations |
| J. Ball and F.I. Parra Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 59 (2017) 024007. |
Turbulent momentum transport due to the beating between different tokamak flux surface shaping effects |
| J. Ball, F.I. Parra, J. Lee, and A.J. Cerfon Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 58 (2016) 125015. |
Effect of the Shafranov shift and the gradient of beta on intrinsic momentum transport in up-down asymmetric tokamaks |
| J. Ball and F.I. Parra Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 58 (2016) 055016. |
Scaling of up-down asymmetric turbulent momentum flux with poloidal shaping mode number in tokamaks |
| J. Ball, F.I. Parra, and M. Barnes Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 58 (2016) 045023. |
Poloidal tilting symmetry of high order tokamak flux surface shaping in gyrokinetics |
| B. Sorbom, J. Ball, T.R. Palmer, F.J. Mangiarotti, J.M. Sierchio, P. Bonoli, C. Kasten, D.A. Sutherland, H.S. Barnard, C.B. Haakonsen, J. Goh, C. Sung, and D.G. Whyte Fusion Engineering and Design 100 (2015) 378. |
ARC: A compact, high-field, fusion nuclear science facility and demonstration power plant with demountable magnets |
| J. Ball, F.I. Parra, and M. Barnes Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion 57 (2015) 035006. |
Intuition for the radial penetration of flux surface shaping in tokamaks |
| P. Rodrigues, N.F. Loureiro, J. Ball, F.I. Parra Nuclear Fusion 54 (2014) 093003. |
Conditions for up-down asymmetry in the core of tokamak equilibria |
| J. Ball Massachusetts Institute of Technology Master's Thesis (2013). |
Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations of intrinsic rotation in up-down asymmetric tokamaks |