Independent research foundation building differentiable plasma turbulence solvers and gradient-based inference methods, validated against published benchmarks.
Research
We develop fully differentiable pseudo-spectral solvers for plasma turbulence — enabling gradient-based parameter inference, state estimation, and data assimilation directly through the turbulent dynamics. Our Hasegawa-Wakatani solver is validated against Biskamp (1994) and Camargo (1995) benchmarks at resolutions up to 1024², and cross-validated against independent implementations. Built in JAX; all methods and code will be published openly.
Results
Direct numerical simulation of Hasegawa-Wakatani drift-wave turbulence. C = 1.0, N = 512, pseudo-spectral IMEX ETD-RK4 solver. Fully differentiable — gradients flow through every timestep.
| Quantity | C = 1.0 (ours) | C = 1.0 (ref) | Error | C = 5.0 (ours) | C = 5.0 (ref) | Error |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total energy E | 3.82 ± 0.21 | 4.4 | 13% | 6.76 ± 0.38 | 8.3 | 19% |
| Particle flux Γₙ | 0.61 ± 0.05 | 0.73 | 17% | 0.129 ± 0.019 | 0.13 | 1% |
| Partition Eᴺ/E | 0.551 ± 0.009 | 0.57 | 3% | 0.753 ± 0.018 | 0.77 | 2% |
| Eₖ slope | −2.30 ± 0.20 | −2.9 | — | −3.47 ± 0.06 | −3.5 | 1% |
| Eₖᴺ slope | −2.67 ± 0.18 | −2.7 | 1% | −4.56 ± 0.08 | −4.2 | 9% |
Camargo, Biskamp & Scott, Phys. Plasmas 2 (1995) 48–62, Tables I & II. N = 512, ν = 10⁻⁸, ∇⁶ hyperviscosity. Cross-validated against hw2d (Greif, github.com/the-rccg/hw2d) — both solvers agree to within 1–2%, confirming the ~15% offset from Camargo 1995 is a systematic numerical-protocol difference, not a coding error.
Activity
Tulp Fusion served on the organizing committee for the 14th ITER International School on Integrated Modelling, held in Aix-en-Provence — bringing together over 200 students and lecturers from 39 countries. ITER Newsline →
People
Scientific Leadership
CNRS Research Director at Aix-Marseille Universite. Founder of the ITER International School. Co-author of ITER Physics. Published extensively on MHD turbulence, anomalous transport, and nonlinear dynamics in magnetized plasmas.
CEA Research Director. EUROfusion project leader for Preparation of ITER Operation. Led the JET Task Force and the final 2023 deuterium-tritium campaigns. Founded CICLOP, the IEA-IAEA coordination network on long-pulse fusion operation. Pioneer of the CRONOS integrated tokamak modelling suite. 250+ publications.
Advisory Board
Over 30 years in energy sector communications. Former VP at GE Renewable Energy. Director of Media Relations at Rolls-Royce. White House Media Staff, Clinton administration.
Foundation
Founded Owlin. Engineering lead for optical diagnostics at Nostics. Develops differentiable PDE solvers and data assimilation methods for plasma turbulence. Validated the foundation's Hasegawa-Wakatani solver against Biskamp and Camargo benchmarks.
Philosopher of science with a career spanning enterprise risk management, high-impact philanthropy in biosecurity, and nuclear risk. Leads governance and policy for the Foundation. Currently advising in the medical industry on the deployment of emerging technologies.
Contact
Location
Amsterdam, the Netherlands