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Title: An ITPA joint experiment to study runaway electron generation and suppression

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4886802· OSTI ID:1376053
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Plasma Science and Fusion Center
  2. Associazione Euratom-ENEA sulla Fusione, C.R. Frascati, Roma (Italy)
  3. National Fusion Research Inst., Daejeon (Korea); Univ. of Science and Technology, Daejeon (Korea). Dept. of Nuclear Fusion and Plasma Science
  4. Forschungszentrum Julich (Germany). Inst. fur Energie- und Klimaforschung (IEK)-Plasmaphysik
  5. ITER Organization, St. Paul Lez Durance (France)
  6. Univ. Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)
  7. Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education (ORISE), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  8. National Fusion Research Inst., Daejeon (Korea)
  9. General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
  10. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Hefei (China). Inst. of Plasma Physics
+ Show Author Affiliations

Recent results from an ITPA joint experiment to study the onset, growth, and decay of relativistic electrons (REs) indicate that loss mechanisms other than collisional damping may play a dominant role in the dynamics of the RE population, even during the quiescent Ip flattop. Understanding the physics of RE growth and mitigation is motivated by the theoretical prediction that disruptions of full-current (15 MA) ITER discharges could generate up to 10 MA of REs with 10-20 MeV energies. The ITPA MHD group is conducting a joint experiment to measure the RE detection threshold conditions on a number of tokamaks under quasi-steady-state conditions in which Vloop, ne, and REs can be well-diagnosed and compared to collisional theory. Data from DIII-D, C-Mod, FTU, KSTAR, and TEXTOR have been obtained so far, and the consensus to date is that the threshold E-field is significantly higher than predicted by relativistic collisional theory, or conversely, the density required to damp REs is significantly less than predicted, which could have significant implications for RE mitigation on ITER.

Research Organization:
General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Contributing Organization:
ITPA MHD Group
Grant/Contract Number:
FC02-04ER54698; FC02-99ER54512; AC05-06OR23100
OSTI ID:
1376053
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 7; ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 64 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (8)

Experimental Observation of Increased Threshold Electric Field for Runaway Generation due to Synchrotron Radiation Losses in the FTU Tokamak journal October 2010
Relativistic limitations on runaway electrons journal June 1975
Control and dissipation of runaway electron beams created during rapid shutdown experiments in DIII-D journal July 2013
Electron and Ion Runaway in a Fully Ionized Gas. II journal January 1960
Experiments in DIII-D toward achieving rapid shutdown with runaway electron suppression journal May 2010
Chapter 3: MHD stability, operational limits and disruptions journal June 2007
Growth and decay of runaway electrons above the critical electric field under quiescent conditions journal February 2014
Theory for avalanche of runaway electrons in tokamaks journal October 1997

Cited By (16)

20 years of research on the Alcator C-Mod tokamaka) journal November 2014
Resolving runaway electron distributions in space, time, and energy journal May 2018
Study of runaway electrons in TUMAN-3M tokamak plasmas journal May 2018
Effect of partially ionized impurities and radiation on the effective critical electric field for runaway generation journal June 2018
Runaway electron experiments at COMPASS in support of the EUROfusion ITER physics research journal November 2018
Spatiotemporal evolution of runaway electrons from synchrotron images in Alcator C-Mod journal October 2018
The role of kinetic instabilities in formation of the runaway electron current after argon injection in DIII-D journal November 2018
Full suppression of runaway electron generation by the mode penetration of resonant magnetic perturbations during disruptions on J-TEXT journal January 2019
Kink instabilities of the post-disruption runaway electron beam at low safety factor journal March 2019
The effect of resonant magnetic perturbation on the electron density threshold of runaway electron generation during disruptions on J-TEXT journal December 2019
Measurements of runaway electron synchrotron spectra at high magnetic fields in Alcator C-Mod journal June 2018
Observation of toroidal Alfvén eigenmode excited by energetic electrons induced by static magnetic perturbations in the EAST tokamak journal August 2018
DIII-D research towards establishing the scientific basis for future fusion reactors journal June 2019
Physics of runaway electrons in tokamaks journal June 2019
First Direct Observation of Runaway-Electron-Driven Whistler Waves in Tokamaks journal April 2018
Spatiotemporal evolution of runaway electrons from synchrotron images in Alcator C-Mod text January 2018

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Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
Runaway electrons
Tokamaks
Hard X-rays
Collision theories
Electron energy loss spectroscopy