J. C. Rost

Studies of turbulence and transport in Alcator C-Mod H-mode plasmas with phase contrast imaging and comparisons with GYRO

Recent advances in gyrokinetic simulation of core turbulence and associated transport requires an intensified experimental effort to validate these codes using state of the art synthetic diagnostics to compare simulations with experimental data. A phase contrast imaging (PCI) diagnostic [M. Porkolab, J. C. Rost, N. Basse et al., IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 34, 229 (2006)] is used to study H-mode plasmas in Alcator C-Mod [M. Greenwald, D. Andelin, N. Basse et al., Nucl. Fusion 45, S109 (2005)]. The PCI system is capable of measuring density fluctuations with high temporal (2kHz–5MHz) and wavenumber (0.5–55cm−1) resolution. Recent upgrades have enabled PCI to localize the short wavelength turbulence in the electron temperature gradient range and resolve the direction of propagation (i.e., electron versus ion diamagnetic direction) of the longer wavelength turbulence in the ion temperature gradient (ITG) and trapped electron mode range. The studies focus on plasmas before and during internal transport barrier fo...

Studies of turbulence and transport in Alcator C-Mod ohmic plasmas with phase contrast imaging and comparisons with gyrokinetic simulations

Recent advances in gyrokinetic simulation have allowed for quantitative predictions of core turbulence and associated transport. However, numerical codes must be tested against experimental results in both turbulence and transport. In this paper, we present recent results from ohmic plasmas in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak using phase contrast imaging (PCI) diagnostic, which is capable of measuring density fluctuations with wave numbers up to 55 cm −1 . The experiments were carried out over the range of densities covering the ‘neo-Alcator’ (linear confinement time scaling with density, electron transport dominates) to the ‘saturated ohmic’ regime. We have also simulated these plasmas with the gyrokinetic code GYRO and compared numerical predictions with experimentally measured turbulence through a synthetic PCI diagnostic method. The key role played by the ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence has been verified, including measurements of turbulent wave propagation in the ion diamagnetic direction. It is found that the intensity of density fluctuations increases with density, in agreement between simulation and experiments. The absolute fluctuation intensity agrees with the simulation within experimental error (±60%). In the saturated ohmic regime, the simulated ion and electron thermal diffusivities also agree with experiments after varying the ion temperature gradient within experimental uncertainty. However, in the linear ohmic regime, GYRO does not agree well with experiments, showing significantly larger ion thermal transport and smaller electron thermal transport. Our study shows that although the short wavelength turbulence in the electron temperature gradient (ETG) range is unstable in the linear ohmic regime, the nonlinear simulation with kθ ρs up to 4 does not raise the electron thermal diffusivity to the experimental level, where kθ is the poloidal wavenumber and

Progress towards increased understanding and control of internal transport barriers in DIII-D

Substantial progress has been made towards both understanding and control of internal transport barriers (ITBs) on DIII-D, resulting in the discovery of a new sustained high performance operating mode termed the quiescent double barrier (QDB) regime. The QDB regime combines core transport barriers with a quiescent ELM-free H mode edge (termed QH mode), giving rise to separate (double) core and edge transport barriers. The core and edge barriers are mutually compatible and do not merge, resulting in broad core profiles with an edge pedestal. The QH mode edge is characterized by ELM-free behaviour with continuous multiharmonic MHD activity in the pedestal region and has provided density and radiated power control for longer than 3.5 s (25τE) with divertor pumping. QDB plasmas are long pulse high performance candidates, having maintained a βNH89 product of 7 for five energy confinement times (Ti≤16 keV, βN≤2.9, H89≤2.4, τE≤150 ms, DD neutron rate Sn≤4×1015 s-1). The QDB regime has only been obtained in counter-NBI discharges (injection antiparallel to the plasma current) with divertor pumping. Other results include successful expansion of the ITB radius using (separately) both impurity injection and counter-NBI, and the formation of ITBs in the electron thermal channel using both ECH and strong negative central shear (NCS) at high power. These results are interpreted within a theoretical framework in which turbulence suppression is the key to ITB formation and control, and a decrease in core turbulence is observed in all cases of ITB formation.

Localized measurement of short wavelength plasma fluctuations with the DIII-D phase contrast imaging diagnostic

A novel rotating mask system has been designed and implemented on the DIII-D phase contrast imaging (PCI) diagnostic to produce the first spatially localized PCI measurements of a tokamak plasma. The localization technique makes use of the variation in the magnetic field component perpendicular to the viewing chord as a function of chord height. This new capability provides measurements in the range of 2<k<30 cm(-1), 10 kHz<f<10 MHz, and 0.7<r/a<1. This technique provides a spatial resolution of 10 cm at k=15 cm(-1) and can realistically provide measurements at a rate of 10 profiles/s. Calibration measurements show accurate characterization of the system transfer function making feasible a time dependent analysis that results in improved localization. Initial measurements show turbulence to peak near the plasma edge. This upgrade is part of a broader program to operate the DIII-D PCI at wave numbers up to 40 cm(-1) to probe electron scale turbulence in the plasma core.

The quiescent double barrier regime in the DIII-D tokamak

Experiments on the DIII-D tokamak have identified a new sustained high-performance operating mode, termed the quiescent double barrier (QDB) regime. The QDB regime combines internal transport barriers (ITBs) with a quiescent, edge localized mode (ELM)-free H-mode edge, termed QH-mode, giving rise to separate core and edge transport barriers. These double barriers have been maintained for {>}3.5 s (~25τE), demonstrating a long-pulse, quasi-steady-state capability. The combination of core ITBs and edge H-mode temperature pedestals results in high-performance plasmas; a βN H89 product of 7 has been maintained for 10 τE, other peak (non-simultaneous) parameters include Ti≤17 keV, βN≤2.9% m T MA-1, H89≤2.6, β≤3.8%, τE≤ 160 ms, and DD neutron rate Sn≤5.5×1015 s-1. These results address a major issue with tokamak plasmas: how to sustain long-pulse, high-performance H-mode plasmas without ELMs, yet retaining the density and impurity control hitherto provided by ELMs. In these QDB plasmas ELMs are replaced by continuous benign MHD activity in the edge, which enhances particle transport. A signature of operation with a QH-mode edge appears to be very large radial electric fields in the edge and scrape-off layer (SOL). In the core, simulations and modelling replicate many of the features of the observed transport and fluctuation behaviour, including the ion temperature profile and turbulence correlation lengths. Slow high-Z impurity accumulation (τ≥500 ms) is observed in the centre of many QDB plasmas, and is the subject of ongoing analysis. To date the QDB regime has only been obtained in plasmas with counter-NBI (injection anti-parallel to the plasma current), and with divertor cryopumping to control the density.

Transport and turbulence studies in the linear ohmic confinement regime in Alcator C-Mod

Transport in ohmically heated plasmas in Alcator C-Mod was studied in both the linear (LOC) and saturated (SOC) ohmic L-mode confinement regimes and the importance of turbulent transport in the region r/axa0=xa00.5–0.8 was established. After an extensive analysis with TGLF and GYRO, it is found that using an effective impurity ion species with Zixa0=xa08, and moderately high Zeff (2.0–5.6), in the LOC regime electron transport becomes dominant due to TEM turbulence. The key ingredient in the present results is the observation that dilution of the main ion species (deuterium) by impurity species of moderate charge state reduces dominant ITG turbulence, in contrast to the SOC regime with little, if any dilution. The turbulent spectrum measured with the phase contrast imaging (PCI) diagnostic is in qualitative agreement with predictions of a synthetic PCI diagnostic adopted to Global GYRO. The toroidal rotation in the low-density LOC regime is in the co-current direction but as the density is raised in the SOC regime the rotation reverses to the counter current drive direction. The impurity content of the plasma was measured recently and an effective Zi of 9 was deduced.

Development of a synthetic phase contrast imaging diagnostic

A “synthetic diagnostic” has been developed to calculate the expected experimental response of phase contrast imaging (PCI), a scattering diagnostic used to measure density fluctuations in laboratory plasmas, to a tokamak discharge modeled with the GYRO nonlinear gyrokinetic code [J. Candy and R. Waltz, J. Comput. Phys. 186, 545 (2003)]. The synthetic PCI includes the spatial response of the experimental diagnostic, primarily implemented as a line integral of plasma density along the beam path, and the minimum and maximum wavenumber response resulting from the detection scheme. The synthetic PCI can be used for comparisons between GYRO and experiment as well as studies of the PCI response.

Role of density gradient driven trapped electron mode turbulence in the H-mode inner core with electron heating

A series of DIII-D [J. L. Luxon, Nucl. Fusion 42, 614 (2002)] low torque quiescent H-mode experiments show that density gradient driven trapped electron mode (DGTEM) turbulence dominates the inner core of H-mode plasmas during strong electron cyclotron heating (ECH). Adding 3.4u2009MW ECH doubles Te/Ti from 0.5 to 1.0, which halves the linear DGTEM critical density gradient, locally reducing density peaking, while transport in all channels displays extreme stiffness in the density gradient. This suggests that fusion α-heating may degrade inner core confinement in H-mode plasmas with moderate density peaking and low collisionality, with equal electron and ion temperatures, key conditions expected in burning plasmas. Gyrokinetic simulations using GYRO [J. Candy and R. E. Waltz, J. Comput. Phys. 186, 545 (2003)] (and GENE [Jenko et al., Phys. Plasmas 7, 1904 (2000)]) closely match not only particle, energy, and momentum fluxes but also density fluctuation spectra from Doppler backscattering (DBS), with and witho...

The effects of dilution on turbulence and transport in C-Mod ohmic plasmas and comparisons with gyrokinetic simulations

Main ion dilution has been predicted by gyrokinetic simulations to have a significant effect on ion thermal transport in C-Mod ohmic plasmas. This effect was verified experimentally with a specific set of experiments on C-Mod in which ohmic deuterium plasmas across the linear ohmic confinement (LOC) through the saturated ohmic confinement (SOC) regimes were diluted by seeding with nitrogen gas (Zu2009=u20097) injection. The seeding was observed to increase the normalized ion temperature gradients (ITGs) by up to 30% without a corresponding increase in the gyrobohm normalized ion energy flux, indicating a change in either the stiffness or the critical ion temperature gradient associated with ITG turbulence. The seeding also reversed the direction of the intrinsic toroidal rotation in plasmas slightly above the normal intrinsic rotation reversal critical density. GYRO simulations of the seeded and unseeded plasmas show that the seeding affected both the critical gradient and the stiffness. For plasmas in the LOC re...

Characterization of density fluctuations during the search for an I-mode regime on the DIII-D tokamak

United States. Department of Energy. Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (Award DE-FG02- 94ER54235)