Towards integrated modeling of rotating mirror plasmas

November 2, 2026

Terra Fusion and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are partnering to develop a computational framework that will be used to refine the design of Terra Fusion’s next fusion prototype. The framework will assess the stability and transport of a centrifugal mirror fusion energy machine with time dependent, fully nonlinear extended MHD simulations that include finite Larmor radius (FLR) effects. Additionally, stability of the equilibrium profiles will be studied using an independent global eigenvalue solver of the linearized equations. The extended MHD simulations will be done with the COGENT code. A Grad-Shafranov equilibrium solver will be set up to obtain ideal MHD equilibrium profiles, which will be used as initial profiles for time-dependent extended MHD simulations, including verification with experimental results from the Centrifugal Mirror Fusion Experiment (CMFX). The results from this project will be integrated into an engineering iterative design loop that will optimize the design and accelerate the completion of the next generation machine under development by Terra Fusion, the TFEC-1 demonstration. These results will directly accelerate development of this technology, and bring commercial fusion to market.