Stabilization of EMC3-EIRENE for detachment conditions and comparison to SOLPS-ITER

Abstract

Numerical access to cold divertor conditions in tokamaks with EMC3-EIRENE has been proven to be challenging, but is now possible for the first time after a linearization of the electron energy sink term from interaction with neutral gas. This is shown based on a 1D flux tube simulation, and consecutively for a full 3D ITER edge plasma configuration. Comparison with SOLPS-ITER simulations for the initial non-active phase in ITER with a gas fueled L-mode show good agreement with EMC3-EIRENE for the transition to detachment. Keywords: Plasma edge modeling, Detachment, Numerical stability