L-H transition studies in tritium and deuterium–tritium campaigns at JET with Be wall and W divertor

Abstract

The recent deuterium–tritium campaign in JET-ILW (DTE2) has provided a unique opportunity to study the isotope dependence of the L-H power threshold in an ITER-like wall environment (Be wall and W divertor). Here we present results from dedicated L-H transition experiments at JET-ILW, documenting the power threshold in tritium and deuterium–tritium plasmas, comparing them with the matching deuterium and hydrogen datasets. From earlier experiments in JET-ILW it is known that as plasma isotopic composition changes from deuterium, through varying deuterium/hydrogen concentrations, to pure hydrogen, the value of the line averaged density at which the threshold is minimum, ${\bar n_{{\text{e}},{\text{min}}}}$ , increases, leading us to expect that ${\bar n_{{\text{e}},{\text{min}}}}$ (T) < ${\bar n_{{\text{e}},{\text{min}}}}$ (DT) < ${\bar n_{{\text{e}},{\text{min}}}}$ (D) < ${\bar n_{{\text{e}},{\text{min}}}}$ (H). The new power threshold data confirms these expectations in most cases, with the corresponding ordering of the minimum power thresholds. We present a comparison of this data to power threshold scalings, used for extrapolation to future devices such as ITER and DEMO.

Keywords

• L-H transition
• power threshold
• tokamaks
• Tritium
• DT
• JET-ILW