Avalanche mechanism for runaway electron amplification in a tokamak plasma
Abstract
The avalanche of runaway electrons is thought to pose a significant obstacle to the success of reactor scale devices such as ITER. As a result, a significant effort has been devoted toward quantifying both the threshold for the initiation of the avalanche of runaway electrons and the efficiency of the avalanche mechanism. In this work, these two quantities are computed utilizing a guiding-center formulation with large-angle collision operators of varying physics fidelity. The use of a guiding-center formulation, while computationally more costly compared to bounce-averaged approaches, provides a conceptually straightforward means of incorporating tokamak geometry. It is found that while the avalanche threshold is only weakly impacted by toroidal geometry for fully ionized low-Z plasmas, it can be significantly impacted if high-Z impurities are present. Furthermore, it is shown that the efficiency of the avalanche mechanism depends sensitively on the impurity content, the charge state of the underlying impurities, and the radial profile of the seed electron population. Lastly, the commonly employed Møller secondary source term used to model the generation of secondary electrons is shown to yield avalanche growth rates and thresholds in good agreement with a more complete conservative large-angle collision operator.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1512743
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-18-28330
Journal ID: ISSN 0741-3335
- Grant/Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 61; Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0741-3335
- Publisher:
- IOP Science
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY; Magnetic Fusion Energy; runaway electrons; tokamak disruptions; Fokker–Planck equation
Citation Formats
McDevitt, Christopher J., Guo, Zehua, and Tang, Xian -Zhu. Avalanche mechanism for runaway electron amplification in a tokamak plasma. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1088/1361-6587/ab0d6d.
McDevitt, Christopher J., Guo, Zehua, & Tang, Xian -Zhu. Avalanche mechanism for runaway electron amplification in a tokamak plasma. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab0d6d
McDevitt, Christopher J., Guo, Zehua, and Tang, Xian -Zhu. Mon .
"Avalanche mechanism for runaway electron amplification in a tokamak plasma". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ab0d6d. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1512743.
@article{osti_1512743,
title = {Avalanche mechanism for runaway electron amplification in a tokamak plasma},
author = {McDevitt, Christopher J. and Guo, Zehua and Tang, Xian -Zhu},
abstractNote = {The avalanche of runaway electrons is thought to pose a significant obstacle to the success of reactor scale devices such as ITER. As a result, a significant effort has been devoted toward quantifying both the threshold for the initiation of the avalanche of runaway electrons and the efficiency of the avalanche mechanism. In this work, these two quantities are computed utilizing a guiding-center formulation with large-angle collision operators of varying physics fidelity. The use of a guiding-center formulation, while computationally more costly compared to bounce-averaged approaches, provides a conceptually straightforward means of incorporating tokamak geometry. It is found that while the avalanche threshold is only weakly impacted by toroidal geometry for fully ionized low-Z plasmas, it can be significantly impacted if high-Z impurities are present. Furthermore, it is shown that the efficiency of the avalanche mechanism depends sensitively on the impurity content, the charge state of the underlying impurities, and the radial profile of the seed electron population. Lastly, the commonly employed Møller secondary source term used to model the generation of secondary electrons is shown to yield avalanche growth rates and thresholds in good agreement with a more complete conservative large-angle collision operator.},
doi = {10.1088/1361-6587/ab0d6d},
journal = {Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion},
number = 5,
volume = 61,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
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