Report of the FESAC panel on burning plasmas

On October 5, 2000 Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus, then Director of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy, instructed the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) to prepare a report describing the status and future of burning plasma physics issues within the U.S. fusion program. FESAC formed a panel to carry out this analysis and the present paper presents a summary of the panel's final report. Dr. Dresselhaus was interested in obtaining answers to three main questions. One, what are the scientific issues that should be addressed in a burning plasma physics experiment? Two, which scientific issues are generic to the general class of toroidal magnetic configurations? Three, how should the Next Step Options (NSO) program be used to assist the community in preparation for an assessment of burning plasma physics options? The panel, after several public sessions and its own deliberations concluded that the community was indeed technically ready and highly desirous of a burning plasma experiment as soon as possible. The difficult questions were (1) what is the best burning plasma experiment or option and (2) how should we proceed to make this choice, as soon as possible with maximal input from the community? The panel has addressed these difficult questions through a series of Findings and Recommendations that are described in the paper.