Divertor heat fluxes and profiles during mitigated and unmitigated edge localised modes (ELMs) on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST)

Abstract

Edge localised modes (ELMs) are a concern for future devices as they can limit the operational lifetime of the divertor. The mitigation of ELMs can be performed by the application of resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) which can act to degrade the pressure gradient in the edge of the plasma. Investigations of the effect of RMPs on MAST have been performed in a range of plasmas using perturbations with toroidal mode numbers of n=3, 4 and 6. It has been seen that the RMPs increase the ELM frequency, which gives rise to a corresponding decrease in the ELM energy. The reduced ELM energy decreases the peak heat flux to the divertor, with a three-fold reduction in the ELM energy, generating a 1.5 fold reduction in the peak heat flux. Measurements of the divertor heat flux profile show evidence of strike point splitting consistent with modelling using the vacuum code ERGOS.