Previous Next
#174
The Scaling 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, G. Papp, C. Paz-Soldan, M. Pedrini, C. Reux, N. Schoonheere, S. Jachmich, S. Silburn, L. Simons, T. Wijkamp, A. Bock, J. Caloud, S. Coda, M. Faitsch, P. Heinrich, H. Reimerdes, V. Rohde, 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 a promising method for safely mitigating runaway electron (RE) beams by triggering an MHD instability at low q-edge, rapidly expelling REs before regeneration. Successful cases distribute REs over a large area, dissipating magnetic energy via radiation and inductive coupling rather than kinetic conversion (avoiding damaging heat fluxes). Experiments on AUG, COMPASS, DIII-D, JET, and TCV have shown that the technique’s success hinges on maintaining low electron density in the companion plasma, which increases Alfvén velocity and accelerates instability growth. The electron density, in turn, depends critically on neutral pressure. At lower pressures (below ~0.5 Pa), increasing neutral pressure reduces electron density due to enhanced cooling and thermal recombination as neutrals conduct energy to the wall. However, at higher pressures (into the Pa range), electron density rises again as RE impact ionization becomes dominant, impairing termination efficiency. This non-monotonic relationship between neutral pressure and electron density highlights the need for careful optimization of plasma conditions to ensure effective RE mitigation. This presentation will summarize the latest data from AUG, DIII-D and TCV, and how we are using the global database to explore the scaling of this technique towards ITER. This will include the surprising results for the upper pressure limit on AUG, which we are continuing to explore with experiments in the weeks leading up to the REM meeting. We will also present how toroidal field impacts the final collapse on TCV. Finally, we will present a progress update on the modelling underway and the planned future work to make predictions for ITER will be presented.
Copyright © 2025 Chalmers Plasma Theory group