Sub-microsecond temporal evolution of edge density during edge localized modes in KSTAR tokamak plasmas inferred from ion cyclotron emission

Nuclear Fushion

article

B. Chapman¹  R.O. Dendy¹  K.G. McClements²  S.C. Chapman¹  G.S. Yun³  S.G. Thatipamula³  M.H. Kim³ 

[1] Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, University of Warwick;CCFE, Culham Science Centre;Pohang University of Science and Technology

关键词: ELM;    ion cyclotron emission;    the magnetoacoustic cyclotron instability;    tokamak;    numerical simulation;    particle in cell;    KSTAR;   

DOI  :  10.1088/1741-4326/aa8e09

来源: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.

【 摘 要 】

During edge localised mode (ELM) crashes in KSTAR deuterium plasmas, bursts of spectrally structured ion cyclotron emission (ICE) are detected. Usually the ICE spectrum chirps downwards during an ELM crash, on sub-microsecond timescales. For KSTAR ICE where the separation of spectral peak frequencies is close to the proton cyclotron frequency Omega_{rm cp}at the outer plasma edge, we show that the driving population of energetic ions is likely to be a subset of the 3 MeV fusion protons, born centrally on deeply passing orbits which drift from the core to the edge plasma. We report first principles modelling of this scenario using a particle-in-cell code, which evolves the full orbit dynamics of large numbers of energetic protons, thermal deuterons, and electrons self-consistently with the electric and magnetic fields. The Fourier transform of the excited fields in the nonlinear saturated regime of the simulations is the theoretical counterpart to the measured ICE spectra. Multiple simulation runs for different, adjacent, values of the plasma density under KSTAR edge conditions enable us to infer the theoretical dependence of ICE spectral structure on the local electron number density. By matching this density dependence to the observed time-dependence of chirping ICE spectra in KSTAR, we obtain sub-microsecond time resolution of the evolving local electron number density during the ELM crash.

【 授权许可】

Unknown