Helium transport in enhanced confinement regimes on the TEXTOR and DIII-D tokamaks

Abstract

Comparisons of helium (He) transport and exhaust in L-mode and in an enhanced confinement regime (H-mode), which is induced by a polarizing electrode, have been made for the TEXTOR tokamak. The results show an increased tendency for He accumulation when bulk plasma energy and particle confinement are improved during the polarization induced H-mode. Since these results imply that a high He pumping efficiency may be necessary for H-mode burning plasmas, we have begun exploring He transport in a divertor H-mode, similar to that proposed for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). A collaborative program has been initiated to measure He transport and scaling on DIII-D during L-mode, H-mode, and ELMing H-mode plasma conditions. To simulate the presence of He ash in DIII-D, a 25 ms He puff is injected into a DIII-D plasma resulting in a He concentration of {approx}5%. The time dependence of the He{sup 2+} density profiles in the plasma core is measured by charge-exchange recombination spectroscopy at 11 radial locations.