Fast lithium-beam spectroscopy of tokamak edge plasmas

Abstract

Plasma-wall interaction and impurity transport processes in the outermost region of magnetically confined hot plasmas (the so-called plasma edge) must be well understood for successful development of future thermonuclear fusion reactors. To this goal, sufficiently detailed edge plasma diagnostics are in great demand. By injecting a fast Li beam into the edge plasma region, a great number of information can be obtained with excellent space and time resolution. This so-called Li-beam plasma spectroscopy gives access not only to edge plasma density profiles from the collisionally excited Li atoms, but also to the impurity concentration and temperature profiles via line emission induced by electron capture from the injected Li atoms by the impurity ions. Full utilization of all capabilities requires a reliable data base for the atomic collision processes involving injected Li atoms and plasma constituents (i.e., electrons, hydrogen ions, and relevant impurities in their various charge states), since a precise modeling of Li beam attenuation and excited-state composition has to be made for evaluating desired plasma properties from the related spectroscopical measurements. The most recent methodical improvement permits a fully consistent determination of absolute edge plasma density profiles by measuring only relative LiI line emission profiles. This is of special interest for investigating rapid edge plasma density fluctuations in connection with, e.g., ELMs, L-H mode transition, turbulence or edge cooling by impurity injection. This paper describes the capabilities of Li-beam edge plasma spectroscopy by way of illustrative examples from measurements at the tokamak experiment TEXTOR.