Plasma Physics

The role of impurity radiation in the reduction of heat loads on divertor plates in present experiments such as DIII-D, JET, JT-60, ASDEX, and Alcator C-Mod, and in planned experiments such as ITER and TPX places a new degree of importance on the accuracy of impurity radiation emission rates for electron temperatures below 250 eV for ITER and below 150 eV for present experiments. We have calculated the radiated power loss using a collisional radiative model for Be, B, C, Ne and Ar using a multiple configuration interaction model which includes density dependent effects, as well as a very detailed treatment of the energy levels and meta-stable levels. The "collisional radiative" effects are very important for Be at temperatures below 10 eV. The same effects are present for higher Z impurities, but not as strongly. For some of the lower Z elements, the new rates are about a factor of two lower than those from a widely used, simpler average-ion package (ADPAK) developed for high Z ions and for higher temperatures. Following the approach of Lengyel for the case where electron heat conduction is the dominant mechanism for heat transport along field lines, our analysis indicates that significant enhancements of the radiation losses above collisional radiative model rates due to such effects as rapid recycling and charge exchange recombination will be necessary for impurity radiation to reduce the peak heat loads on divertor plates for high heat flux experiments such as ITER.

Starting from a covariant cycle-averaged Lagrangian the relativistic oscillation center equation of motion of a point charge is deduced and analytical formulae for the ponderomotive force in a travelling wave of arbitrary strength are presented. It is further shown that the ponderomotive forces for transverse and longitudinal waves are different; in the latter, uphill acceleration can occur. In a standing wave there exists a threshold intensity above which, owing to transition to chaos, the secular motion can no longer be described by a regular ponderomotive force. PACS number(s): 52.20.Dq,05.45.+b,this http URL,52.60.+h

Two, the most simple cases of special-relativistic flows of a viscous, incompressible fluid are considered: plane Couette flow and plane Poiseuille flow. Considering only the regular motion of the fluid we found the distribution of velocity in the fluid (velocity profiles) and the friction force, acting on immovable wall. The results are expressed through simple analytical functions for the Couette flow, while for the Poiseiulle flow they are expressed by higher transcendental functions (Jacobi's elliptic functions).

The Stellarator News is a bi-monthly newsletter covering the international stellarator community.

Stellarator News, an international journal of the stellarator community, is Published by Fusion Energy Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, James A. Rome, Editor In the March 1995 issue . . . **** Exerpts from the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assment report on TPX and Alternate Concepts. **** Edge transport and turbulence studies on U-3M The turbulent-driven particle flow is shown to be comparable with the equilibrium flow at the boundary of the configuration under Alfven-heating conditions in the U-3M torsatron. **** Topological aspects of island divertor studies on W7-AS The structure of the edge plasma in W7-AS, observed with probes, television camera, and H-alpha light agrees at low beta with vacuum field calculations: the low-valued resonances at iotabar=5/m are resolved for m = 8 to 11; external perturbations are not significant at the edge, even for iotabar = 5/10. **** 140-GHz second harmonic O-mode electron cyclotron heating at W7-AS First experimental results are presented of 140-GHz second harmonic O-mode (0.7-MW power) ECRH at a high electron density of 1.8 x 10^20 m^-3 on W7-AS. **** Equilibrium plasma currents in quasi-symmetric stellarators with a helical magnetic axis The plasma currents in quasi-symmetric stellarators are calculated to determe the quasi-symmetric conditions with the help of analytical equations.

To characterize the conditions required to reach advanced divertor regimes, a one-dimensional computational model has been developed based on a coordinate transformation to incorporate two-dimensional effects. This model includes transport of ions, two species each of atoms and molecules, momentum, and ion and electron energy both within and across the flux surfaces. Impurity radiation is calculated using a coronal equilibrium model which includes the effects of charge-exchange recombination. Numerical results indicate that impurity radiation acts to facilitate plasma detachment and enhances the power lost from the divertor channel in escaping neutral atoms by cooling the electrons and suppressing ionization. As divertor particle densities increase, cold and thermal molecules become increasingly important in cooling the plasma, with molecular densities dominating electron and atomic densities under some conditions.

The development and time evolution of a transport barrier in a magnetically confined plasma with non-monotonic, nonlinear dependence of the anomalous flux on mean gradients is analyzed. Upon consideration of both the spatial inhomogeneity and the gradient nonlinearity of the transport coefficient, we find that the transition develops as a bifurcation front with radially propagating discontinuity in local gradient. The spatial location of the transport barrier as a function of input flux is calculated. The analysis indicates that for powers slightly above threshold, the barrier location x b (t)∼( D n t(P− P c )/ P c ) 1/2 , where P c is the local transition power threshold and D n is the neoclassical diffusivity . This result suggests a simple explanation of the high disruptivity observed in reversed shear plasmas. The basic conclusions of this theory are insensitive to the details of the local transport model.