The use of the compressional hydromagnetic mode (also called the magnetosonic or, simply, the fast wave) is examined in some detail with respect to the heating of a tritium plasma containing a few percent deuterium. Efficient absorption of wave energy by the deuteron component is found when ω = ωC (deuterons), with Qwave 100. Reasonable efficiencies are found also for electron heating, but coherence effects between transit-time and Landau damping for electrons reduce the total absorption for both processes to one-half of the transit-time power, calculated separately.The fusion output of a two-component neutral-injected plasma can be enhanced by selective heating of the injected deuterons. Also, selective deuteron absorption may be used for ion-tail creation by radiofrequency excitation alone, as an alternative to neutral injection. The dominant behaviour of the high-energy deuteron distribution function is found to be f(v) ~ exp[(3/2)∫vdv / ], where is the Chandrasekhar-Spitzer drag coefficient, and is the Kennel-Engelmann quasi-linear diffusion coefficient for wave-particle interaction at the deuteron cyclotron frequency. An analytic solution to the one-dimensional Fokker-Planck equation, with r.f.-induced diffusion, is developed, and using this solution together with Duane's fit to the D-T fusion cross-section, it is found that the nuclear-fusion power output from an r.f.-produced two-component plasma can significantly exceed the incremental (radiofrequency) power input.

Fast-wave heating of a two-component plasma

A model for sawtooth oscillations in tokamak experiments is outlined. A threshold criterion for the onset of internal kink modes and a prescription for the relaxed profiles immediately after the sawtooth crash have been implemented in a transport code that evolves the relevant plasma parameters. In this paper, applications of this model to the prediction of the sawtooth period and amplitude in projected ITER discharges are discussed. It is found that sawteeth can be stabilized transiently by the fusion alpha particles in ITER for periods that are long on the energy confinement timescale (). The sawtooth period depends on the amount of reconnected flux at the preceding sawtooth crash. When Kadomtsev's full reconnection model is used, the period can exceed 100 s. The sawtooth mixing radius following long duration sawtooth ramps can easily exceed half the plasma minor radius, raising questions about the desirability of transient sawtooth suppression.

Model for the sawtooth period and amplitude

The 2014-2016 JET results are reviewed in the light of their significance for optimising the ITER research plan for the active and non-active operation. More than 60 h of plasma operation with ITER first wall materials successfully took place since its installation in 2011. New multi-machine scaling of the type I-ELM divertor energy flux density to ITER is supported by first principle modelling. ITER relevant disruption experiments and first principle modelling are reported with a set of three disruption mitigation valves mimicking the ITER setup. Insights of the L-H power threshold in Deuterium and Hydrogen are given, stressing the importance of the magnetic configurations and the recent measurements of fine-scale structures in the edge radial electric. Dimensionless scans of the core and pedestal confinement provide new information to elucidate the importance of the first wall material on the fusion performance. H-mode plasmas at ITER triangularity (H = 1 at β N ∼ 1.8 and n/n GW ∼ 0.6) have been sustained at 2 MA during 5 s. The ITER neutronics codes have been validated on high performance experiments. Prospects for the coming D-T campaign and 14 MeV neutron calibration strategy are reviewed.

/pdf/overview-of-the-jet-results-in-support-to-iter-rt5lvghnre.pdf

Overview of the JET results in support to ITER

A method is presented for solving the toroidal magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium equation in a coordinate system based on the magnetic field lines. Both fixed boundary (conducting shell) and free boundary (external coil) boundary conditions are considered. A comparison with a special analytic solution is made. The method is useful for obtaining equilibria to use in tokamak stability and transport calculations.

Iterative metric method for solving the inverse Tokamak equilibrium problem

Electron transport in tokamaks has many different features which are briefly reviewed. The paper is focused on electron heat transport in conventional tokamak plasmas. An inter-machine comparison indicates that the non-dimensional gradient length of the electron temperature profiles R/L Te is almost independent of the devices and varies little with plasma parameters. This strongly suggests that electron heat transport is governed by turbulence with a threshold in R/L Te . This is confirmed by modulation experiments using electron cyclotron heating. Simulations with empirical and physics-based transport models confirm this assumption.

Experimental studies of electron transport

The soft X-ray (SXR) emission provides valuable insight into processes happening inside of high-temperature plasmas. A standard method for deriving the local emissivity profiles of the plasma from the line-of-sight integrals measured by pinhole cameras is the tomographic inversion. Such an inversion is challenging due to its ill-conditioned nature and because the reconstructed profiles depend not only on the quality of the measurements but also on the inversion algorithm used. This paper provides a detailed description of several tomography algorithms, which solve the inversion problem of Tikhonov regularization with linear computational complexity in the number of basis functions. The feasibility of combining these methods with the minimum Fisher information regularization is demonstrated, and various statistical methods for the optimal choice of the regularization parameter are investigated with emphasis on their reliability and robustness. Finally, the accuracy and the capability of the methods are demonstrated by reconstructions of experimental SXR profiles, featuring poloidal asymmetric impurity distributions as measured at the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak.

/pdf/optimized-tomography-methods-for-plasma-emissivity-34apzka2in.pdf

Optimized tomography methods for plasma emissivity reconstruction at the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak.

The profiles of the W transport coefficients have been experimentally calculated for a large database of identical ASDEX Upgrade H-mode discharges where only the radio-frequency (RF) power characteristics have been varied [Angioni et al., Nucl. Fusion 57, 056015 (2017)]. Central ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) in the minority heating scheme has been compared with central and off-axis electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH), using both localized and broad heat deposition profiles. The transport coefficients have been calculated applying the gradient-flux relation to the evolution of the intrinsic W density in-between sawtooth cycles as measured using the soft X-ray diagnostic. For both ICRH and ECRH, the major player in reducing the central W density peaking is found to be the reduction of inward pinch and, in the case of ECRH, the rise of an outward convection. The impurity convection increases, from negative to positive, almost linearly with RF-power, while no appreciable changes are observed ...

Parametric dependencies of the experimental tungsten transport coefficients in ICRH and ECRH assisted ASDEX Upgrade H-modes

Due to the high mass and charge of the heavy ions, centrifugal and electrostatic forces cause a significant variation in their poloidal density. The impact of these forces on the poloidal density profile of tungsten was investigated utilizing the detailed two-dimensional SXR emissivity profiles from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. The perturbation in the electrostatic potential generated by magnetic trapping of the non-thermal ions from neutral beam injection was found to be responsible for significant changes in the poloidal distribution of tungsten ions. An excellent match with the results from fast particle modeling was obtained, validating the model for the poloidal fast particle distribution. Additionally, an enhancement of the neoclassical transport due to an outboard side impurity localization was measured in the experiment when analyzing the tungsten flux between sawtooth crashes. A qualitative match with neoclassical modeling was found, demonstrating the possibility of minimizing neoclassical transport by an optimization of the poloidal asymmetry profile of the impurity.

/pdf/the-physics-of-w-transport-illuminated-by-recent-progress-in-19a0mijjcr.pdf

The physics of W transport illuminated by recent progress in W density diagnostics at ASDEX Upgrade

Light reflections are one of the main and often underestimated issues of plasma emissivity reconstruction in visible light spectral range. Metallic and other specular components of tokamak generate systematic errors in the optical measurements that could lead to wrong interpretation of data. Our analysis is performed at data from the tokamak COMPASS. It is a D-shaped tokamak with specular metallic vessel and possibility of the H-mode plasma. Data from fast visible light camera were used for tomographic reconstruction with background reflections subtraction to study plasma boundary. In this article, we show that despite highly specular tokamak wall, it is possible to obtain a realistic reconstruction. The developed algorithm shows robust results despite of systematic errors in the optical measurements and calibration. The motivation is to obtain an independent estimate of the plasma boundary shape.

/pdf/plasma-tomographic-reconstruction-from-tangentially-viewing-1vx9u623z4.pdf

Plasma tomographic reconstruction from tangentially viewing camera with background subtraction

In the non-linear phase of a sawtooth, the complete reconnection of field lines around the q = 1 flux surface often occurs resulting in a radial displacement of the plasma core. A complete time-dependent electromagnetic model of this type of reconnection has been developed and implemented in the EBdyna_go code. This contribution aims at studying the behaviour of ions, both impurity and fast particles, in the pattern of reconnecting field lines during sawtoothing plasma experiments in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak by using the newly developed numerical framework. Simulations of full reconnection with tungsten impurity that include the centrifugal force are achieved and recover the soft x-ray measurements. Based on this full-reconnection description of the sawtooth, a simple tool dedicated to estimate the duration of the reconnection is introduced. This work then studies the redistribution of fast ions during several experimentally observed sawteeth. In some cases of sawteeth at ASDEX Upgrade, full reconnection is not always observed or expected so the code gives an upper estimate of the actual experimental redistribution. The results of detailed simulations of the crashes are compared with measurements from various diagnostics such as collective Thomson scattering and fast-ion D-alpha (FIDA) spectroscopy, including FIDA tomography. A convincing qualitative agreement is found in different parts of velocity space.

/pdf/numerical-and-experimental-study-of-the-redistribution-of-1x2fsoitom.pdf

T. Odstrcil

Papers

Optimized tomography methods for plasma emissivity reconstruction at the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak.

Parametric dependencies of the experimental tungsten transport coefficients in ICRH and ECRH assisted ASDEX Upgrade H-modes

The physics of W transport illuminated by recent progress in W density diagnostics at ASDEX Upgrade

Plasma tomographic reconstruction from tangentially viewing camera with background subtraction

Numerical and experimental study of the redistribution of energetic and impurity ions by sawteeth in ASDEX Upgrade