Benjamin Carreras Verdaguer

Benjamín Andrés Carreras Verdaguer

Benjamín Andrés Carreras Verdaguer
University of Alaska, Fairbanks US

Dr. Benjamin A. Carreras received a Ph.D. in 1968 from the University of Valencia, Spain. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Glasgow University, Scotland, in 1969 and in 1970 joined the staff of Daresbury Nuclear Physics Laboratory, England.

He returned to Spain in 1972 as a staff member of the Junta de Energia Nuclear, Madrid, and an assistant professor at the Complutense University at Madrid.

Since 1976 he has been in the United States, he spent one year as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In 1980, he joined the staff of the Fusion Energy Division at ORNL.

In 2007 he established BACV Solutions Inc and is affiliated Professor at the Alaska University.

Before 1975, his main area of research was theoretical high-energy physics. Dr. Carreras worked mainly on the phenomenology of strong interactions. In 1976, his research shifted to the field of theoretical plasma physics. In the 90’s, Dr. Carreras also entered the field of complex system where he has investigated Power transmission systems, communication systems and the interdependence between different infrastructure systems.

Dr. Carreras has published more than 335 research papers in refereed journals and has received several awards. For seven years he was the leader of the U. S. Transport task Force. In 1986, he was appointed ORNL corporate fellow.

Research stay at UC3M: DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Project: The central part of the project is the study of the plasma turbulent flow topology and its impact on the particle transport in magnetically confined plasmas We focus on the topological properties of the velocity stream function and we did the first studies to correlate properties of turbulent eddies with the trapping times of tracers particles.

We use the continuous time random walk approach to then relate these properties to transport. We hope to provide a better understanding of and a more quantitative approach to the non-diffusive transport properties of plasmas.

We also plan to explore the Modification of the plasma turbulence dynamics due to the presence of non-Maxwellian fast electrons, which have been detected in the TJ-II stellarator.

Finally we plan to work on the identification of extreme events in turbulence induced plasma transport. In processes, which do not follow Gaussian statistics, and they are of Levy type, risk can be maximum for the extreme events. Therefore, the identification and quantification of extreme events becomes essential.

Stay period: FEB 2014 - JUL 2014