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#233
Establishing the Physics Basis for Low-Z Benign Termination of Runaway Electron Beams With A Multi-Machine Database Oral
Umar Sheikh (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Swiss Plasma Center (SPC))
U. Sheikh, A. Battey, J. Decker, O. Ficker, C. Reux, V. Bandaru, J. Caloud, ZY Chen, S. Coda, M. Faitsch, E. Hollmann, M. Hoppe, V. Igochine, S. Jachmich, C. Liu, Y. Lee, Y. Liu, G. Papp, C. Paz-Soldan, M. Pedrini, N. Prakhar, H. Reimerdes, N. Schoonheere, D. Shiraki, B. Sieglin, S. Silburn, L. Simons, E. Tonello, C. Wang, T. Wijkamp, W. Yan, B. Zimmermann, JET contributors, the AUG Team, TCV Team, the WPTE Team, the DIII-D team and many more
Abstract
The mitigation of relativistic runaway electron (RE) beams is a critical requirement for the protection of plasma-facing components in next-step tokamaks such as ITER and SPARC. Currently, a fully validated solution for the dissipation of multi-megaampere beams does not exist; however, "low-Z benign termination" has emerged as a high-potential candidate. This scheme relies on the injection of hydrogenic species into an established RE beam to trigger current-driven magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities, which deconfine the RE population over a broad wetted area. This presentation provides an overview of the recently established ITPA MDC-23 multi-machine database, which aggregates experimental results from ASDEX Upgrade, COMPASS, DIII-D, JET, KSTAR, TCV, and WEST. We characterize the operational space of this termination path, focusing on the neutral pressure requirements and the resulting MHD spectra that drive the stochastic loss of the beam. A rigorous, physics-based definition of "benignity" is proposed, quantifying the success of the termination based on the fraction of magnetic energy converted to radiation versus the localization of the final heat loads. Key results from JET demonstrate that benign termination can be reliably achieved for RE beams with currents up to 1.5 MA. While the application of this technique at higher currents remains to be fully explored, we discuss the experimental challenges encountered during high pre-disruption current discharges. Specifically, RE beams were not successfully established at pre-disruption currents above 2.5 MA, largely because the quantity of Argon required to initiate the RE plateau at these levels was disproportionately high relative to the concentrations planned for the ITER Disruption Mitigation System and massive amounts of D2 during this phase lead to localized extreme neutral pressures. These results suggest that the current lack of data at high current is a consequence of beam-formation constraints rather than a fundamental limit of the low-Z mitigation physics. By analyzing these cross-machine scaling trends, we provide empirical benchmarks for non-linear MHD modeling and the sizing of future injection systems. The presentation concludes with the roadmap for the formal publication of this database in 2026, aimed at providing the international community with a validated reference for extrapolating benign termination strategies to the reactor scale.
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