Radial profile measurement with an improved 1 kHz Thomson scattering system on Versatile Experiment Spherical Torus.

Abstract

A Thomson scattering (TS) system has been utilized to measure the electron temperature and density of the core region of Versatile Experiment Spherical Torus (VEST). Recently, the laser injection system is successfully upgraded adopting the burst laser with the repetition rate of 1 kHz and the energy of 2J. Furthermore, improved collection optics with additional polychromators and a 32-channel fast digitizer are prepared to observe the fast time evolution of radial profiles. This improvement is essential to study fast phenomena such as internal reconnection event (IRE). We increase the TS signal and reduce the stray light by introducing new filters having better optical properties such as high optical density at 1064nm, transmission, and reflectance. Moreover, the optimum reverse bias voltages are newly set to make the system operational independent of the background radiation. As a result, 1 kHz radial profiles of the core electron temperature and density are measured for the first time, showing characteristics of IREs in VEST.