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  • Accepted Manuscript: Impact of magnetic islands in the plasma edge on particle fueling and exhaust in the HSX and W7-X stellarators

This content will become publicly available on May 29, 2019

Title: Impact of magnetic islands in the plasma edge on particle fueling and exhaust in the HSX and W7-X stellarators

The edge magnetic structure in the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX) and Wendelstein 7X (W7-X) stellarators has been shown to have a significant impact on the particle fueling and exhaust of the plasma main species (hydrogen) as well as impurity helium. For HSX, the plasma sourcing to exhaust ratio, quantified by the effective and global particle confinement times τ p * and τ p , H , respectively, increases when a magnetic island chain is located in the plasma edge. The fueling efficiency is reduced by 25% when the plasma boundary is deformed by the magnetic islands. The X-point geometry also yields higher plasma temperatures in front of the main recycling region. When the island is moved radially inward, both τ p * and τ p decrease by 10 % – 25 % depending on plasma density. The τ p , H results rely heavily on EMC3-EIRENE modeling which confirms reduced fueling efficiency due to more rapid ionization in the outward shifted island position. These findings suggest that for a helically optimized system like HSX, the plasma fueling from the recycling source, as well as from active gas injection, can be controlled by the magnetic island chain in the plasma edge—which is a basic requirement for a divertor system. This process is also effective for the control of effective helium exhaust times, as τ p , H e * measured by perturbative gas puff experiments is reduced by up to 40% when the islands are shifted inwards. For Wendelstein 7-X, a similar reduction of τ p , H e * was inferred when magnetic islands were moved from the far plasma edge into the confined plasma region. Finally, however, the effective confinement features of H as the main plasma species were not affected due to the non-optimal position of the magnetic islands with respect to the highly localized ionization domain during the limiter startup campaign.
Authors:
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+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Max Planck Inst. of Plasma Physics, Greifswald (Germany)
  4. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Publication Date:
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-93ER54222; SC0014210; AC05-00OR22725; AC52-06NA25396; 633053
Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physics of Plasmas
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 25; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)
Research Org:
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Max Planck Inst. of Plasma Physics, Greifswald (Germany)
Sponsoring Org:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) (SC-24); European Commission (EC)
Contributing Orgs:
W7-X Team
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; plasma confinement; SOLs; fusion reactors; plasma density; plasma temperature; interferometers; plasma sources
OSTI Identifier:
1439332
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1439403