Analysis of Fusion Alphas Interaction with RF Waves in D-T Plasma at JET

Analysis of Fusion Alphas Interaction with RF Waves in D-T Plasma at JET

Analysis of Fusion Alphas Interaction with RF Waves in D-T Plasma at JET 150 150 UKAEA Opendata

This work studies the influence of RF waves in ICRH range of frequency on fusion alphas during recent JET D-T campaign. Fusion alphas from D-T reactions are born with energies of about 3.5MeV and therefore have significant Doppler shift enabling synergistic interaction between them and RF waves at broad range of frequencies including the ones foreseen for future fusion machines ITER [1] and SPARC [2]. Resonant interaction between RF waves and alphas, also called synergistic effects, will modify the alpha distribution and ultimately will have an impact on alpha orbit losses and heating. Data from JET 3.43T/2.3MA pulses based on hybrid scenario [3], [4], [5] during DTE2 campaign [30] were used for the analysis in this study. The impact of synergistic effects on alpha orbit losses and alpha heating is assessed. Conclusions are based on analysis of experimental data for fast alphas losses, i.e. neutral particle analyser, fast ion losses scintillator detector, Faraday cups, and TRANSP [6] simulations. Experimental data and TRANSP analysis indicate that there are indeed changes is alphas distribution function due to interaction with RF waves. Data from neutral particle analyser show increased 4He flux in the range from few hundred keV up to 800keV for pulses with RF power, while TRANSP clearly shows modifications in fast alphas distribution function for these energies. Data from the scintillator detector and the Faraday cups were compared for pulses with and without ICRH power and versus cases with enhanced alpha losses due to MHD activities. The trends from these diagnostics consistently show no additional alpha losses due to interaction with RF waves. TRANSP predictions for the impact of the synergistic effects on alpha heating show up to 42% increase in alpha electron heating and up to 25% increase in alpha ion heating. These effects however become negligibly small, less than 1%, when alpha heating is compared to total auxiliary hearting power for the investigated JET pulses.

Collection:
Journals
Journal:
Nuclear Fusion
Publisher:
IOP (Institute of Physics)