Detachment in Fusion Plasmas with Symmetry Breaking Magnetic Perturbation Fields

H. Frerichs, O. Schmitz, X. Bonnin, A. Loarte, Y. Feng, L. Li, Y. Q. Liu, and D. Reiter
Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 155001 – Published 9 October 2020

Abstract

Power exhaust from the bulk plasma is significantly altered by symmetry breaking magnetic perturbation fields, because these create direct connections (perturbed field lines) from the confined high temperature plasma to solid surfaces. The same amount of power is distributed among those new exhaust channels as for a symmetric magnetic configuration, which reduces the local upstream heat flux flowing down the perturbed field lines, thereby making access to detachment easier (i.e., at lower upstream density) for the divertor plasma near the location corresponding to the symmetric magnetic separatrix. However, the divertor plasma regions with connection to the bulk plasma are extended nonaxisymmetrically further outside, where significant heat loads occur, unlike in the symmetric configuration. The temperature remains high at those locations, which reduces the divertor plasma dissipation capacity, making the mitigation of heat loads more difficult to achieve.

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  • Received 12 September 2019
  • Revised 24 June 2020
  • Accepted 9 September 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.155001

© 2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Plasma PhysicsNonlinear Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

H. Frerichs* and O. Schmitz

  • Department of Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

X. Bonnin and A. Loarte

  • ITER Organization, Route de Vinon-sur-Verdon, CS 90 046, 13067 St. Paul Lez Durance Cedex, France

Y. Feng

  • Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Association EURATOM-IPP, 17491 Greifswald, Germany

L. Li

  • College of Science, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China

Y. Q. Liu

  • General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186-5608, USA

D. Reiter

  • Institute for Laser and Plasma Physics, Heinrich-Heine-University, D-40225 Duesseldorf, Germany

  • *hfrerichs@wisc.edu

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Vol. 125, Iss. 15 — 9 October 2020

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