Plasma shape stabilization of current rise MHD instabilities in TCV

The well-known and potentially disruptive plasma 'current rise' instabilities are studied as a function of the plasma shape in the Tokamak a a Configuration Variable (TCV). Disruptions typically occur in quasi-circular plasmas at q(a) - 3 in both non-sawtoothing and sawtoothing discharges with peaked current profiles. The perturbations in the plasma parameters before disruption are characterized, and the main unstable modes identified as coupled m/n = 2/1 and 3/2 rotating tearing modes. In the early phase, coupling between 3/1 and 2/1 modes is found to play a major role in determining whether or not the disruption will occur. Plasma cross section shaping is observed to reduce or to completely stabilize the disruptive mode and is regularly used in TCV operation as a tool for safe initial current ramp-up. Plasma elongation, positive and negative triangularity prevent the growth of a large 2/1 mode at q(a) - 3, thus reducing or even suppressing the disruptions. We also attempt an interpretation of the experimental results. Calculations of the tearing-mode stability parameter triangle' using the experimental plasma equilibria suggest the dominant role of toroidal mode coupling in the destabilization of the m/n = 2/1 mode in quasi-circular TCV plasmas. The effect of shaping on the reconstructed current profile and tearing stability is then considered. The analysis shows a destabilising trend with elongation and triangularity in contrast with the experiment. Other stabilizing mechanisms are discussed and shown to potentially contribute to the safe crossing of q(a) = 3 in shaped plasmas

Density dependence of SOL power width in ASDEX upgrade L-Mode

AbstractUnderstanding the heat transport in the scrape-off layer (SOL) and the divertor region is essential for the design of large fusion devices such as ITER and DEMO. Current scalings for the power fall-off length λq in H-Mode [1] are available only for the outer divertor target at low densities with low recycling divertor conditions. For the divertor power spreading S only an empirical scaling for ASDEX Upgrade L-Mode is available based on global plasma parameters [2]. Modelling using SOLPS shows a dependence of S on the divertor electron temperature [3]. A more detailed analysis of the heat transport forming λq and S is presented for ASDEX Upgrade L-Mode discharges in hydrogen (H), deuterium (D) and helium (He). For low densities the power fall-off length λq,o on the outer divertor target in H and D is described by the same parametric dependencies as the H-Mode scaling [1] but with a larger absolute size of the power fall-off length in L-Mode.The divertor power spreading S is studied using the local divertor measurements of the target electron temperature Te,tar and density ne,tar. It is found that the competition of the diffusive transport parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field forming S∝χ⊥/χ∥ is dominated by the temperature dependence of parallel electron conduction. For high divertor temperatures the ion gyro radius has a significant contribution to S, resulting in a minimum of S at ∼30 eV.A recent study [4] with an open divertor configuration found an asymmetry of the power fall-off length between inner and outer target with a smaller power fall-off length λq,i on the inner divertor target. Measurements with a closed divertor configuration find a similar asymmetry for low recycling divertor conditions. It is found, in the experiment, that the in/out asymmetry λq,i/λq,o is strongly increasing with increasing density. Most notably the heat flux density at the inner divertor target is reducing with increasing λq,i whilst the total power onto each divertor target stays constant. It is found that λq,o exhibits no significant density dependence for hydrogen and deuterium but increases with about the square root of the electron density for helium. The difference between H,D and He could be due to the different recycling behaviour in the divertor. These findings may help current modelling attempts to parametrize the density dependence of the widening of the power channel and thus allow for detailed comparison to both divertor effects like recycling or increased upstream SOL cross field transport

Automated Design of a Broadside-Radiating Linearly Polarized Isotropic Metasurface Antenna

We present the automated design of a broadside-radiating metasurface antenna. The design is carried out by employing a continuous isotropic Impedance Boundary Condition through an optimization procedure based on the equivalent surface current only. A modified gradient-descent optimization algorithm is applied to minimize an objective function that incorporates both realizability and far field requirements. The antenna is then implemented by a suitable arrangement of circular unit cells, selected from a database of precomputed shapes. This procedure is applied to the design of a broadside-radiating, linearly polarized circular metasurface antenna working at 23 GHz, with size ≈12λ . The obtained design is then validated with commercial software simulations