The role of plasma-atom and molecule interactions on power & particle balance during detachment on the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor

The role of plasma-atom and molecule interactions on power & particle balance during detachment on the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor

The role of plasma-atom and molecule interactions on power & particle balance during detachment on the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor 150 150 UKAEA Opendata
UKAEA-CCFE-PR(23)132

The role of plasma-atom and molecule interactions on power & particle balance during detachment on the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor

First quantitative analysis of the detachment processes in the MAST Upgrade Super-X divertor show an unprecedented impact of plasma-molecular interactions involving molecular ions, resulting in strong ion sinks, leading to a reduction of ion target flux. This starts to occur as the ionisation source detaches from the target, leading to a build-up of molecules below the ionisation source who get excited, resulting in Molecular Activated Recombination (MAR) and Dissociation (MAD). The particle sinks in the divertor chamber exceed the ion sources in the middle of the detached operational regime before electron-ion recombination (EIR) starts to occur, demonstrating the strong capabilities for particle exhaust in the Super-X Configuration. MAD is the dominant volumetric neutral atom creation mechanism and results in significant power losses. This, combined with electron-impact excitation preceding ionisation, are the dominant power loss mechanisms in the divertor chamber. As the plasma becomes more deeply detached, EIR starts to occur and electron temperatures below 0.2 eV are achieved. Even at such low electron temperature conditions, MAR is observed to be an important ion sink mechanism, which suggests the presence of highly vibrationally excited molecules in the cold detached regime. The total radiative power loss is consistent with extrapolations of spectroscopic inferences to hydrogenic radiative power losses, which suggests that intrinsic impurity radiation, despite the carbon walls, is minor. These observations are observed in Ohmic L-mode, ELM-free H-mode and type I ELMy H-mode discharges.

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