Modelling of sawtooth-induced fast ion transport in positive and negative triangularity in TCV

Internal kinks are a common magneto hydro-dynamic (MHD) instability observed in tokamak operation when the q profile in the plasma core is close to unity. This MHD instability impacts both the transport of the bulk plasma (current, particle and energy transport) and minority species, such as fast ions. In tokamak a configuration variable (TCV) (R (0)/a = 0.88 m/0.25 m) the fast ion population is generated in the plasma by neutral beam tangential injection of energies up to 28 keV. TCV features 16 active shaping coils permitting a great flexibility in plasma shape, including negative triangularity (delta) configurations that show surprisingly high confinement. This study focuses on the transport of fast ions induced by sawteeth, by comparing two triangularity cases and simulation results with experimental data. Comparison of two equilibria with opposite delta shows that the fast ion drifts are larger for delta < 0. Furthermore, the sawtooth-induced transport in this case is larger than delta > 0 in similar conditions. Comparison with experimental data confirms the dominance of the modification of thermal kinetic profiles following the sawtooth crash in explaining drops in the neutron rates and fast ion D-alpha signals. Additional fast ion diffusion, however, improves the interpretation of the experimental data. For delta < 0, the amplitude of the perturbation better representing the experimental data is larger. Finally, an exploratory study for 50 keV particles (soon available in TCV) shows that the situation does not worsen for such particles.

Suprathermal electron studies in Tokamak plasmas by means of diagnostic measurements and modeling

Josef Kamleitner

To achieve reactor-relevant conditions in a tokamak plasma, auxiliary heating systems are required and can be realized by waves injected in the plasma that heat ions or electrons under certain conditions. Electron cyclotron resonant heating (ECRH) is a very flexible and robust technique featuring localized power deposition and current drive (CD) capabilities. Its fundamental principles such as damping on the cyclotron resonance are well understood and the application of ECRH is a proven and established tool; electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) is regularly used to develop advanced scenarios and control magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) instabilities in the plasma by tailoring the current profile. There remain important open questions, such as the phase space dynamics, the observed radial broadening of the suprathermal electron distribution function (e.d.f.) and discrepancies in predicted and experimental CD efficiency. These are addressed in this thesis. One of its main goals is indeed to improve the understanding of wave-particle interaction in plasmas and current drive mechanisms. This was accomplished by combined experimental and numerical studies, strongly based on the conjunction of hard X-ray (HXR) bremsstrahlung measurements and Fokker-Planck modeling, characterizing the suprathermal electron population. The hard X-ray tomographic spectrometer (HXRS) diagnostic was purposely developed to perform these studies, in particular by investigating spatial HXR emission asymmetries in the co- and counter-current directions and within the poloidal plane. The system uses cadmium-telluride (CdTe) detectors and digital acquisition to store the complete time history of incoming photon pulses. An extensive study of digital pulse processing algorithms was performed and its consequent application allows the HXRS to handle high count rates in a noisy tokamak environment. Numerous other numerical tools were developed in the course of this thesis, among others to improve the time resolution by conditional averaging and to obtain local information with the general tomographic inversion (GTI) package. The interfaces of the comparatively new LUKE code and well-established CQL3D Fokker-Planck (F-P) code to the tokamak à configuration variable (TCV) data were refurbished and a detailed benchmarking of these two codes was performed for the first time. Indeed, the theory-predicted toroidal and poloidal emission asymmetries could be consistently verified by experiment and modeling in many cases, including scans of a variety of plasma and wave parameters. The effects of supra-thermal electron diffusion and radio frequency (RF) wave scattering, both resulting in a radial broadening of the HXR emission, were separated by a poloidal deposition location angle scan. Furthermore, previous results on anomalous diffusion and CD efficiency were reproduced with increased confidence arising from enhanced diagnostic specifications. The plasma response to electron cyclotron (EC) absorption and the role of quasi-linear effects were investigated using the coherent averaging capabilities of the HXRS. Several MHD instabilities can occur in the plasma center and better understanding of these modes and events is indispensable for their mitigation in order to prevent their negative effects on confinement and stability. Sawtooth crashes are such a major instability and localized at the q=1 surface. They can be described as the evolution of an internal m=1 kink mode leading to [...]

EPFL2015

A Fast Ion Loss Detector for the TCV Tokamak

Lorenzo Stipani

A Fast Ion Loss Detector (FILD) was designed, assembled, installed and commissioned for TCV. This is a radially positionable, scintillator based detector that provides information on the 2D fast-ion velocity space lost at the probe's location. The collected particles are collimated inside the probe head and impinge upon a plate coated with a scintillator material that emits light. The photon flux is relayed to two acquisition systems: a sCMOS camera for high spatial resolution measurements of the emission locations in the scintillator, and fast photo-multipliers that allow time-correlation studies of fast-ion losses with high-frequency electromagnetic fluctuations. From its position with respect to the confined plasma and the fast-ion sources on TCV, FILD probes a small portion of the lost fast-ion phase space with high velocity-space and temporal resolution. Therefore, it naturally complements other available diagnostics such as neutral particle analysers, spectroscopy techniques for light emission from energetic particles following CX reactions, or neutron counters, which feature a broader, but less resolved, spatial coverage of fast-ion dynamics.The TCV-FILD design introduces some novelties for exploring new ranges of operation that may be adopted in similar systems for other Tokamaks, such as ITER. Two entrance slits can collect particles that circulate in co- and cntr-plasma current directions. This will be particularly useful when the second NBH system, injecting in the opposite toroidal direction, with particle energies that can excite strong Alfvénic modes, will be operated on TCV. A controlled pneumatic linear actuator radially positions the detector to expose the slits to the particle flux up to 9mm inward of the vessel wall. A plug-in design was conceived to facilitate diagnostic installation. The diagnostic was installed and commissioned during TCV experiments in 2020. The sensitivity of the detector to the local magnetic field line direction was investigated. The direction of the plasma current was found to select which of the two slits may be traversed by lost particles. The operational limits in discharges with NBH with total delivered energies up to 1MJ were assessed with the help of sensors monitoring the temperature of the probe head and cameras detecting visible light emissions resulting from the graphite shield heating by particle fluxes. Using FILD, fast-ion losses were detected for the first time on TCV in plasma discharges exhibiting strong MHD modes. Ejections of energetic ions were found correlated in time with Sawtooth crashes, as a sequence of individual events, and in strong phase coherence, as a continuous loss in time, with magnetic perturbations of a saturated and toroidally rotating magnetic island of a NTM. These observations, in addition to providing initial results on the relevant physics phenomena, stimulating further experiments and comparisons with theory, demonstrate the ability of TCV-FILD to provide valuable information in plasma discharges of interest for fast-ion studies. These measurements and additional information from other TCV diagnostics may now be combined to reconstruct, with tomographic inversion techniques, more of the fast-ion phase space. This will be used to identify the conditions for the excitation/suppression of magnetic instabilities, develop methods for their real-time control with heating and/or shaping actuators and investigate their dependencies on plasma parameters.

EPFL2021

Generation and observation of fast deuterium ions and fusion-born alpha particles in JET D-He-3 plasmas with the 3-ion radio-frequency heating scenario

Javier García Hernández, Alberto Mariani, Henri Weisen

Dedicated experiments to generate energetic D ions and D-(3) He fusion-born alpha particles were performed at the Joint European Torus (JET) with the ITER-like wall (ILW). Using the 3-ion D-(D-NBI)-(3) He radio frequency (RF) heating scenario, deuterium ions from neutral beam injection (NBI) were accelerated in the core of mixed D-(3) He plasmas to higher energies with ion cyclotron resonance frequency (ICRF) waves, in turn leading to a core-localized source of alpha particles. The fast-ion distribution of RF-accelerated D-NBI ions was controlled by varying the ICRF and NBI power (P-ICRF approximate to 4-6 MW, P-NBI approximate to 3-20 MW), resulting in rather high D-D neutron (approximate to 1x10(16) s(-1)) and D-(3) He alpha rates (approximate to 2x10(16) s(-1)) at moderate input heating power. Theory and TRANSP analysis shows that large populations of co-passing MeV-range D ions were generated using the D-(D-NBI)-(3) He 3-ion ICRF scenario. This important result is corroborated by several experimental observations, in particular gamma-ray measurements. The developed experimental scenario at JET provides unique conditions for probing several aspects of future burning plasmas, such as the contribution from MeV range ions to global confinement, but without introducing tritium. Dominant fast-ion core electron heating with T-i approximate to T-e and a rich variety of fast-ion driven Alfven eigenmodes (AEs) were observed in these D-(3) He plasmas. The observed AE activities do not have a detrimental effect on the thermal confinement and, in some cases, may be driven by the fusion born alpha particles. A strong continuous increase in neutron rate was observed during long-period sawteeth (>1 s), accompanied by the observation of reversed shear AEs, which implies that a non monotonic q profile was systematically developed in these plasmas, sustained by the large fast-ion populations generated by the 3-ion ICRF scenario.

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2020