Neutron and Gamma-ray Measurements

Abstract

Due to high neutron and gamma‐ray yields and large size plasmas many future fusion reactor plasma parameters such as fusion power, fusion power density, ion temperature, fuel mixture, fast ion energy and spatial distributions can be well measured by various fusion product diagnostics. Neutron diagnostics provide information on fusion reaction rate, which indicates how close is the plasma to the ultimate goal of nuclear fusion and fusion power distribution in the plasma core, which is crucial for optimization of plasma breakeven and burn. Depending on the plasma conditions neutron and gamma‐ray diagnostics can provide important information, namely about dynamics of fast ion energy and spatial distributions during neutral beam injection, ion cyclotron heating and generated by fast ions MHD instabilities. The influence of the fast particle population on the 2‐D neutron source profile was clearly demonstrated in JET experiments. 2‐D neutron and gamma‐ray source measurements could be important for driven plasma heating profile optimization in fusion reactors. To meat the measurement requirements in ITER the planned set of neutron and gamma ray diagnostics includes radial and vertical neutron and gamma cameras, neutron flux monitors, neutron activation systems and neutron spectrometers. The necessity of using massive radiation shielding strongly influences the diagnostic designs in fusion reactor, determines angular fields of view of neutron and gamma‐ray cameras and spectrometers and gives rise to unavoidable difficulties in the absolute calibration. The development, testing in existing tokomaks and a possible engineering integration of neuron and gamma‐ray diagnostic systems into ITER are presented.