Assessment of the strength of kinetic effects of parallel electron transport in the SOL and divertor of JET high radiative H-mode plasmas using EDGE2D-EIRENE and KIPP codes

Abstract

The kinetic code for plasma periphery (KIPP) was used to assess the importance of the kinetic effects of parallel electron transport in the scrape-off layer (SOL) and divertor of JET high radiative H-mode inter-ELM plasma conditions with the ITER-like wall and strong nitrogen (N2) injection. Plasma parameter profiles along a magnetic field from one of the EDGE2D-EIRENE simulation cases were used as an input for KIPP runs. Profiles were maintained by particle and power sources. KIPP generated electron distribution functions, fe, parallel power fluxes, electron–ion thermoforces, Debye sheath potential drops and electron sheath transmission factors at divertor targets. For heat fluxes in the main SOL, KIPP results showed deviations from classical (e.g. Braginskii) fluxes by factors typically of ∼1.5, sometimes up to 2, with the flux limiting for more upstream positions and flux enhancement near entrances to the divertor. In the divertor, at the same time, for radial positions closer to the separatrix, very large heat flux enhancement factors of up to ten or even higher, indicative of a strong nonlocal heat transport, were found at the outer target, with heat power flux density exhibiting bump-on-tail features at high energies. Under such extreme conditions, however, contributions of conductive power fluxes to total power fluxes were strongly reduced, with convective power fluxes becoming comparable, or sometimes exceeding, conductive power fluxes. Electron–ion thermoforce, on the other hand, which is known to be determined mostly by thermal and subthermal electrons, was found to be in good agreement with Braginskii formulas, including the Zeff dependence. Overall, KIPP results indicate, at least for the plasma conditions used in this modelling, a sizable, but not dominant, effect of kinetics on parallel electron transport.