Helium transport in enhanced confinement regimes on the TEXTOR and DIII-D tokamaks

Comparisons of helium (He) transport and exhaust in L-mode and in an enhanced confinement regime (H-mode), which is induced by a polarizing electrode, have been made for the TEXTOR tokamak. The results show an increased tendency for He accumulation when bulk plasma energy and particle confinement are improved during the polarization-induced H-mode. Since these results imply that a high He pumping efficency may be necessary for H-mode burning plasmas, we have begun exploring He transport in a divertor H-mode, similar to that proposed for the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER). A collaborative program has been initiated to measure He transport and scaling on DIII-D during L-mode, H-mode, and ELMing H-mode plasma conditions. To simulate the presence of He ash in DIII-D, a 25 ms He puff is injected into a DIII-D plasma, resulting in a He concentration of ≈5%. The time dependence of the He²⁺ density profiles in the plasma core is measured by charge-exchange recombination spectroscopy at 11 radial locations.