Spectroscopic characterization of the DIII-D divertor

Abstract

Radiative losses along a fixed view into the divertor chamber of the DIII-D tokamak [Plasma Physics Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research 1986 (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1987), Vol I, p. 159] have been characterized for attached and partially detached discharges by analyzing line-integrated vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) signals. Essentially all the emission can be ascribed to carbon and deuterium. Because the majority of the most intense lines, which lie at wavelengths above 1100 Å, are not accessible to the present instrumentation, extensive use has been made of collisional-radiative (CR) calculations for level populations of the important ions in order to relate the total radiated power to shorter wavelength transitions. In beam-heated plasmas, the fraction of radiation detected from carbon along the VUV spectrometer view is usually between 50% and 80% of the total. Carbon densities are estimated from a simplified approach to modelling the emission using a one-dimensional transport code. For partially detached plasmas the concentrations range from 2%–6% of the electron density; but in attached plasmas it appears that carbon may supply most of the electrons in the divertor region just below the X point. Ion temperatures are measured from Doppler broadening of spectral lines by fitting measured profiles to theoretical lineshapes, which account precisely for atomic sublevel splitting caused by the Zeeman/Paschen-Back effect in the tokamak magnetic field.