Assessment of the effect of parallel temperature gradients in the JET SOL on Te measured by divertor target Langmuir probes

Abstract

Higher than expected electron temperatures (Te) are often measured by divertor Langmuir probes (LP) in high recycling and detached regimes in JET and other tokamaks. As a possible mechanism to explain this discrepancy, we investigate the effect of penetration of fast, almost collisionless electrons connecting the hot upstream scrape-off layer (SOL) region to the divertor targets in JET. We simulate the electron velocity distribution function (EVDF) near the divertor targets using a simple 1D kinetic model using parallel SOL profiles from EDGE2D-EIRENE simulations. The resulting EVDF is used to construct synthetic LP current–voltage (IV) characteristics and evaluation of Te is performed in the same way as for experimental data. Results indicate that the process does not explain the anomalously high Te values estimated from the target probe measurements if the EDGE2D-EIRENE simulated parallel profiles are a good representation of reality.