Nuclear Fusion (Jan 2024)

Alpha particle loss measurements and analysis in JET DT plasmas

  • P.J. Bonofiglo,
  • V.G. Kiptily,
  • J. Rivero-Rodriguez,
  • M. Nocente,
  • M. Podestà,
  • Ž. Štancar,
  • M. Poradzinski,
  • V. Goloborodko,
  • S.E. Sharapov,
  • M. Fitzgerald,
  • R. Dumont,
  • J. Garcia,
  • D. Keeling,
  • D. Frigione,
  • L. Garzotti,
  • F.G. Rimini,
  • D. Van Eester,
  • E. Lerche,
  • M. Maslov,
  • JET Contributors

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ad69a1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 64, no. 9
p. 096038

Abstract

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Burning reactor plasmas will be self-heated by fusion born alpha particles from deuterium-tritium reactions. Consequently, a thorough understanding of the confinement and transport of DT-born alpha particles is necessary to maintain the plasma self-heating. Measurements of fast ion losses provide a direct means to monitor alpha particle confinement. JET’s 2021–2022 second experimental DT-campaign offers burning plasma scenarios with advanced fast ion loss diagnostics for the first time in nearly 25 years. Coherent and non-coherent alpha losses were observed due to a variety of low frequency MHD activity. This manuscript will present the loss mechanisms, spatial and pitch dependencies, scalings with plasma parameters, correlations with wall impurities, and magnitude of DT-alpha born losses.

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