Effects of energetic particle phase space modifications by instabilities on integrated modeling
- Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States)
Tokamak plasmas can feature a large population of energetic particles (EP) from neutral beam injection or fusion reactions. In turn, energetic particles can drive instabilities, which affect the driving EP population leading to a distortion of the original EP distribution function and of quantities that depend on it. The latter include, for example, neutral beam (NB) current drive and plasma heating through EP thermalization. Those effects must be taken into account to enable reliable and quantitative simulations of discharges for present devices as well as predictions for future burning plasmas. Reduced models for EP transport are emerging as an effective tool for long time-scale integrated simulations of tokamak plasmas, possibly including the effects of instabilities on EP dynamics. Available models differ in how EP distribution properties are modified by instabilities, e.g. in terms of gradients in real or phase space. It is therefore crucial to assess to what extent different assumptions in the transport models affect predicted quantities such as EP profile, energy distribution, NB driven current and energy/momentum transfer to the thermal populations. A newly developed kick model, which includes modifications of the EP distribution by instabilities in both real and velocity space, is used in this work to investigate these issues. Coupled to TRANSP simulations, the kick model is used to analyze NB-heated NSTX and DIII-D discharges featuring unstable Alfven eigenmodes (AEs). Results show that instabilities can strongly affect the EP distribution function, and modifications propagate to macroscopic quantities such as NB-driven current profile and NB power transferred to the thermal plasma species. Those important aspects are only qualitatively captured by simpler fast ion transport models that are based on radial diffusion of energetic ions only.
- Research Organization:
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), Princeton, NJ (United States); General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
- Contributing Organization:
- Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton NJ 08543 - USA
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-09CH11466; FC02-04ER54698
- OSTI ID:
- 1346925
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1267536; OSTI ID: 1347147; OSTI ID: 1371851
- Journal Information:
- Nuclear Fusion, Vol. 56, Issue 11; ISSN 0029-5515
- Publisher:
- IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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journal | July 2019 |
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journal | May 2018 |
Resonance broadened quasi-linear (RBQ) model for fast ion distribution relaxation due to Alfvénic eigenmodes
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journal | June 2018 |
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journal | August 2018 |
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