#104
Multi-Machine Studies of Low-Z Benign Termination of RE Beams
Oral
Umar Sheikh (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Swiss Plasma Center (SPC))
A. Battey, J. Decker, O. Ficker, E. Hollmann, M. Hoppe, C. Paz-Soldan, M. Pedrini, C. Reux, N. Schoonheere, M. Tost, J. Caloud, S. Jachmich, M. Lehnen, S. Silburn, L. Simons, T. Wijkamp, J. Cazabonne, J. Cerovsky, S. Coda, C. Colandrea, A. Dal Molin, B. Duval, N. Eidietis, M. Faitsch, G. Papp, G. Pautasso, H. Reimerdes, D. Shiraki, B. Sieglin, JET contributors, the AUG Team, TCV Team, The EUROfusion Tokamak Exploitation Team, the DIII-D team and many more
Abstract
Low-Z benign termination is currently an active area of research as it may provide a path to safe termination of a runaway electron (RE) beam. This approach exploits an MHD instability at low q-edge to expel the confined RE population in timescales shorter than regeneration. When successful, the confined REs are spread over a large wetted area and the remaining magnetic energy is dissipated through radiation and inductive coupling (as opposed to conversion to kinetic energy and consequently high heat flux to plasma facing components in a non-benign RE impact).
Low-Z benign termination has now been explored on AUG, COMPASS, DIII-D, JET and TCV. Results show that the success of this technique depends on achieving low electron density in the companion plasma, which in turn leads to a high Alfven velocity that enables a fast growth rate of the final instability. The electron density of the companion plasma has been found to vary as a function of neutral pressure. Up to neutral pressures of ~0.5 Pa, increases in neutral pressure typically led to a decrease in electron density. This is attributed to neutrals conducting energy from the companion plasma to the wall, leading to cooling and thermal recombination. As the neutral pressure is increased into the Pa range, the electron density of the companion plasma is seen to increase again, resulting in reduced efficacy of the final termination. This is attributed to an increase in the RE impact ionization.
Understanding these limits is crucial for the extrapolation of this technique to ITER and reactor size machines. This presentation will summarize the current datasets available on AUG, COMPASS, DIII-D, JET and TCV, and what we can take away from them. Models under development for the lower and upper limit in neutral pressure will also be introduced. Finally, an outline of the future work required to make predictions for ITER will be presented.