Temporal evolution of confined fast-ion velocity distributions measured by collective Thomson scattering in TEXTOR

S. K. Nielsen, H. Bindslev, L. Porte, J. A. Hoekzema, S. B. Korsholm, F. Leipold, F. Meo, P. K. Michelsen, S. Michelsen, J. W. Oosterbeek, E. L. Tsakadze, G. Van Wassenhove, E. Westerhof, P. Woskov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Fast ions created in the fusion processes will provide up to 70% of the heating in ITER. To optimize heating and current drive in magnetically confined plasmas insight into fast-ion dynamics is important. First measurements of such dynamics by collective Thomson scattering (CTS) were recently reported. Here we extend the discussion of these results which were obtained at the TEXTOR tokamak. The fast ions are generated by neutral-beam injection and ion-cyclotron resonance heating. The CTS system uses 100-150 kW of 110-GHz gyrotron probing radiation which scatters off the collective plasma fluctuations driven by the fast-ion motion. The technique measures the projected one-dimensional velocity distribution of confined fast ions in the scattering volume where the probe and receiver beams cross. By shifting the scattering volume a number of scattering locations and different resolved velocity components can be measured. The temporal resolution is 4 ms while the spatial resolution is ∼10 cm depending on the scattering geometry. Fast-ion velocity distributions in a variety of scenarios are measured, including the evolution of the velocity distribution after turnoff of the ion heating. These results are in close agreement with numerical simulations.

Original languageEnglish
Article number016407
JournalPhysical Review E - Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
Volume77
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 29 Jan 2008

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