Discovery of the High-Confinement Mode (H-mode)
1982Wagner et al. (35 authors, ASDEX team), "Regime of Improved Confinement and High Beta in Neutral-Beam-Heated Divertor Discharges of the ASDEX Tokamak" (Physical Review Letters 49, 1408-1412, 8 November 1982; DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.1408). Reported a spontaneous transition in the ASDEX tokamak to a regime with roughly doubled energy-confinement time -- the high-confinement mode, now the baseline operating regime planned for ITER. An empirical plasma-physics discovery; the Applied record is the Tokamak lineage innovation, linked below.
Originators
- Friedrich Wagner
- ASDEX Team
Landmark Paper
Checked 2026-10-18 — interim signal only, see docs/BASIC_ROADMAP.md Phase 10
Connections
- enables Tokamak T-3 / Helical Magnetic Confinement Plasmabasis: reasoned
The Tokamak magnetic-confinement lineage record is the device family in which H-mode was discovered and is now the baseline operating regime. Looser "enables" than "is_application_of": the tokamak (anchor 1968) predates the discovery, which improved it rather than founded it. Tier 1 SS9: the only edge from this node into the applied tree.
Cross-Domain Connections
No verified cross-domain connections indexed for Discovery of the High-Confinement Mode (H-mode) yet. Verified links are admitted under FSTP epistemic audit standards.