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One of the primary requirements for an effective fusion power plant (FPP) is the sufficient confinement of the fusion products, the energetic alpha particles produced in the deuterium-tritium reaction. These energetic particles must be confined sufficiently long such that they can deposit their energy in the thermal bulk and maintain the fusion burn. Furthermore, rapid losses must be avoided to mitigate destruction of the material walls of the fusion device.

Stellarators possess an immense amount of freedom in the choice of magnetic field. Modern stellarators are designed using numerical optimization techniques to find configurations with improved confinement properties consistent with engineering constraints. Navigating through the associated high-dimensional, non-convex design space is practically challenging. Our research focuses on the development of improved algorithms for efficient optimization techniques, such as through the deployment of adjoint methods.