Power exhaust by SOL and pedestal radiation at ASDEX Upgrade and JET

Future fusion reactors require a safe, steady state divertor operation. A possible solution for the power exhaust challenge is the detached divertor operation in scenarios with high radiated power fractions. The radiation can be increased by seeding impurities, such as N for dominant scrape-off-layer radiation, Ne or Ar for SOL and pedestal radiation and Kr for dominant core radiation.Recent experiments on two of the all-metal tokamaks, ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) and JET, demonstrate operation with high radiated power fractions and a fully-detached divertor by N, Ne or Kr seeding with a conventional divertor in a vertical target geometry. For both devices similar observations can be made. In the scenarios with the highest radiated power fraction, the dominant radiation originates from the confined region, in the case of N and Ne seeding concentrated in a region close to the X-point.Applying these seed impurities for highly radiative scenarios impacts local plasma parameters and alters the impurity transport in the pedestal region. Thus, plasma confinement and stability can be affected. A proper understanding of the effects by these impurities is required in order to predict the applicability of such scenarios for future devices

Ni-62(n,gamma) and Ni-63(n,gamma) cross sections measured at the n_TOF facility at CERN

The cross section of the Ni-62(n,gamma) reaction was measured with the time-of-flight technique at the neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN. Capture kernels of 42 resonances were analyzed up to 200 keV neutron energy and Maxwellian averaged cross sections (MACS) from kT = 5-100 keV were calculated. With a total uncertainty of 4.5%, the stellar cross section is in excellent agreement with the the KADoNiS compilation at kT = 30 keV, while being systematically lower up to a factor of 1.6 at higher stellar temperatures. The cross section of the Ni-63(n,gamma) reaction was measured for the first time at n_TOF. We determined unresolved cross sections from 10 to 270 keV with a systematic uncertainty of 17%. These results provide fundamental constraints on s-process production of heavier species, especially the production of Cu in massive stars, which serve as the dominant source of Cu in the solar system.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Present Status and Future Programs of the n_TOF Experiment

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License 3.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any noncommercial medium, provided the original work is properly citedThe neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN, Switzerland, operational since 2001, delivers neutrons using the Proton Synchrotron (PS) 20 GeV/c proton beam impinging on a lead spallation target. The facility combines a very high instantaneous neutron flux, an excellent time of flight resolution due to the distance between the experimental area and the production target (185 meters), a low intrinsic background and a wide range of neutron energies, from thermal to GeV neutrons. These characteristics provide a unique possibility to perform neutron-induced capture and fission cross-section measurements for applications in nuclear astrophysics and in nuclear reactor technology.The most relevant measurements performed up to now and foreseen for the future will be presented in this contribution. The overall efficiency of the experimental program and the range of possible measurements achievable with the construction of a second experimental area (EAR-2), vertically located 20 m on top of the n_TOF spallation target, might offer a substantial improvement in measurement sensitivities. A feasibility study of the possible realisation of the installation extension will be also presented

Fission Fragment Angular Distribution measurements of 235U and 238U at CERN n-TOF facility

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. EJP Web of Conferences 111, 10002 (2016). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/201611110002. © 2016 The Authors. Published by EDP Sciences.Neutron-induced fission cross sections of 238U and 235U are used as standards in the fast neutron region up to 200 MeV. A high accuracy of the standards is relevant to experimentally determine other neutron reaction cross sections. Therefore, the detection effciency should be corrected by using the angular distribution of the fission fragments (FFAD), which are barely known above 20 MeV. In addition, the angular distribution of the fragments produced in the fission of highly excited and deformed nuclei is an important observable to investigate the nuclear fission process. In order to measure the FFAD of neutron-induced reactions, a fission detection setup based on parallel-plate avalanche counters (PPACs) has been developed and successfully used at the CERN-n-TOF facility. In this work, we present the preliminary results on the analysis of new 235U(n,f) and 238U(n,f) data in the extended energy range up to 200 MeV compared to the existing experimental data

Measurement of the U 238 (n,γ) cross section up to 80 keV with the Total Absorption Calorimeter at the CERN n-TOF facility

The radiative capture cross section of a highly pure (99.999%), 6.125(2) grams and 9.56(5)×10-4 atoms/barn areal density U238 sample has been measured with the Total Absorption Calorimeter (TAC) in the 185 m flight path at the CERN neutron time-of-flight facility n-TOF. This measurement is in response to the NEA High Priority Request list, which demands an accuracy in this cross section of less than 3% below 25 keV. These data have undergone careful background subtraction, with special care being given to the background originating from neutrons scattered by the U238 sample. Pileup and dead-time effects have been corrected for. The measured cross section covers an energy range between 0.2 eV and 80 keV, with an accuracy that varies with neutron energy, being better than 4% below 25 keV and reaching at most 6% at higher energies

GEANT4 simulation of the neutron background of the C6D6 set-up for capture studies at n_TOF

The neutron sensitivity of the C6D6 detector setup used at n_TOF facility for capture measurements has been studied by means of detailed GEANT4 simulations. A realistic software replica of the entire n_TOF experimental hall, including the neutron beam line, sample, detector supports and the walls of the experimental area has been implemented in the simulations. The simulations have been analyzed in the same manner as experimental data, in particular by applying the Pulse Height Weighting Technique. The simulations have been validated against a measurement of the neutron background performed with a natC sample, showing an excellent agreement above 1 keV. At lower energies, an additional component in the measured natC yield has been discovered, which prevents the use of natC data for neutron background estimates at neutron energies below a few hundred eV. The origin and time structure of the neutron background have been derived from the simulations. Examples of the neutron background for two different samples are demonstrating the important role of accurate simulations of the neutron background in capture cross-section measurements

Experiments with neutron beams for the astrophysical s process

Neutron capture cross sections are the key nuclear physics input to study the slow neutron capture process, which is responsible for forming about half of the elemental abundances above Fe. Stellar neutron capture cross section can be measured by the time-of-flight technique, or by activation. Both techniques will be discussed and recent experiments in the Fe/Ni mass region will be presented

Modelling of the effect of ELMs on fuel retention at the bulk W divertor of JET

Effect of ELMs on fuel retention at the bulk W target of JET ITER-Like Wall was studied with multi-scale calculations. Plasma input parameters were taken from ELMy H-mode plasma experiment. The energetic intra-ELM fuel particles get implanted and create near-surface defects up to depths of few tens of nm, which act as the main fuel trapping sites during ELMs. Clustering of implantation-induced vacancies were found to take place. The incoming flux of inter-ELM plasma particles increases the different filling levels of trapped fuel in defects. The temperature increase of the W target during the pulse increases the fuel detrapping rate. The inter-ELM fuel particle flux refills the partially emptied trapping sites and fills new sites. This leads to a competing effect on the retention and release rates of the implanted particles. At high temperatures the main retention appeared in larger vacancy clusters due to increased clustering rate

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

Experimental neutron capture data of 58Ni from the CERN n_TOF facility

The neutron capture cross section of 58 Ni was measured at the neutron time of flight facility n-TOF at CERN, from 27 meV to 400 keV neutron energy. Special care has been taken to identify all the possible sources of background, with the so-called neutron background obtained for the first time using high-precision GEANT4 simulations. The energy range up to 122 keV was treated as the resolved resonance region, where 51 resonances were identified and analyzed by a multilevel R-matrix code SAMMY. Above 122 keV the code SESH was used in analyzing the unresolved resonance region of the capture yield. Maxwellian averaged cross sections were calculated in the temperature range of κT = 5 - 100 keV, and their astrophysical implications were investigated