Recent U.S. fusion development strategy reports all recommend that the U.S. should pursue innovative science and technology to enable construction of a Fusion Pilot Plant (FPP) that produces net electricity from fusion at low capital cost. Compact tokamaks have been proposed as a means of potentially reducing the capital cost of a fusion pilot plant. However, compact steady-state tokamak FPPs face the challenge of integrating a high fraction of self-driven current with high core confinement, plasma pressure, and high divertor parallel heat flux. This integration is sufficiently challenging that a dedicated sustained-high-power-density (SHPD) tokamak facility is proposed by the U.S. community as the optimal way to close this integration gap. Performance projections for the steady-state tokamak FPP regime are presented and a preliminary SHPD device with substantial flexibility in lower aspect ratio (A=2-2.5), shaping, and divertor configuration to narrow gaps to a FPP is described.
Sharma, A. Y.; Cole, M. D. J.; Görler, T.; Chen, Y.; Hatch, D. R.; Guttenfelder, W.; Hager, R.; Sturdevant, B. J.; Ku, S.; Chang, C. S.
Abstract:
Plasma shaping may have a stronger effect on global turbulence in tight-aspect-ratio tokamaks than in conventional-aspect-ratio tokamaks due to the higher toroidicity and more acute poloidal asymmetry in the magnetic field. In addition, previous local gyrokinetic studies have shown that it is necessary to include parallel magnetic field perturbations in order to accurately compute growth rates of electromagnetic modes in tight-aspect-ratio tokamaks. In this work, the effects of elongation and triangularity on global, ion-scale, linear electromagnetic modes are studied at NSTX aspect ratio and high plasma beta using the global gyrokinetic particle-in-cell code XGC. The effects of compressional magnetic perturbations are approximated via a well-known modification to the particle drifts that was developed for flux-tube simulations [N. Joiner et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 072104 (2010)], without proof of its validity in a global simulation. Magnetic equilibria are re-constructed for each distinct plasma profile that is used. Coulomb collision effects are not considered. Within the limitations imposed by the present study, it is found that linear growth rates of electromagnetic modes (collisionless microtearing modes and kinetic ballooning modes) are significantly reduced by NSTX-like shaping. For example, growth rates of kinetic ballooning modes at high beta are reduced to the level of that of collisionless trapped electron modes.
Stoltzfus-Dueck, T; Hornsby, W A; Grosshauser, S R
Abstract:
Ion Landau damping interacts with a portion of the E×B drift to cause a non-diffusive outward flux of co-current toroidal angular momentum. Quantitative evaluation of this momentum flux requires nonlinear simulations to determine fL, the fraction of fluctuation free energy that passes through ion Landau damping, in fully developed turbulence. Nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations with the GKW code confirm the presence of the systematic symmetry-breaking momentum flux. For simulations with adiabatic electrons, fL scales inversely with the ion temperature gradient, because only the ion curvature drift can transfer free energy to the electrostatic potential. Although kinetic electrons should in principle relax this restriction, the ion Landau damping measured in collisionless kinetic-electron simulations remained at low levels comparable with ion-curvature-drift transfer, except when magnetic shear was strong. A set of simulations scanning the electron pitch-angle scattering rate showed only a weak variation of fL with the electron collisionality. However, collisional-electron simulations with electron temperature greater than ion temperature unambiguously showed electron-curvature-drift transfer supporting ion Landau damping, leading to a corresponding enhancement of the symmetry-breaking momentum flux.
Wang, Yin; Gilson, Erik P.; Ebrahimi, Fatima; Goodman, Jeremy; Caspary, Kyle J.; Winarto, Himawan W.; Ji, Hantao
Abstract:
This dataset provides the source data of figures in the main text of the paper "Identification of a non-axisymmetric mode in laboratory experiments searching for standard magnetorotational instability" accepted by Nature Communications.
Using a recently installed impurity powder dropper (IPD), boron powder (< 150 μm) was injected into lower single null (LSN) L-mode discharges in WEST. IPDs possibly enable real-time wall conditioning of the plasma-facing components and may help to facilitate H-mode access in the full-tungsten environment of WEST. The discharges in this experiment featured Ip = 0.5 MA, BT = 3.7 T, q95 = 4.3, tpulse = 12–30 s, ne,0 ~ 4×1019 m-2, and PLHCD ~ 4.5 MW. Estimates of the deuterium and impurity particle fluxes, derived from a combination of visible spectroscopy measurements and their corresponding S/XB coefficients, showed decreases of ~ 50% in O+, N+, and C+ populations during powder injection and a moderate reduction of these low-Z impurities (~ 50%) and W (~ 10%) in the discharges that followed powder injection. Along with the improved wall conditions, WEST discharges with B powder injection observed improved confinement, as the stored energy WMHD, neutron rate, and electron temperature Te increased significantly (10–25% for WMHD and 60–200% for the neutron rate) at constant input power. These increases in confinement scale up with the powder drop rate and are likely due to the suppression of ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence from changes in Zeff and/or modifications to the electron density profile.
The growth of magnetic islands in NSTX is modeled successfully, with the consideration of passing fast ions. It is shown that a good quantitative agreement between simulation and experimental measurement can be achieved when the uncompensated cross-field current induced by passing fast ions is included in the island growth model. The fast ion parameters,
along with other equilibrium parameters, are obtained self-consistently using the TRANSP code with the assumptions of the ‘kick’ model (Podestà et al 2017 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 59 095008). The results show that fast ions can contribute to overcoming the stabilizing effect of polarization current for magnetic island growth.
Non-axisymmetric magnetic fields arising in a tokamak either by external or internal perturbations can induce complex non-ideal MHD responses in their resonant surfaces while remaining ideally evolved elsewhere. This layer response can be characterized in a linear regime by a single parameter called the inner-layer Delta, which enables outer-layer matching and the prediction of torque balance to non-linear island regimes. Here, we follow strictly one of the most comprehensive analytic treatments including two-fluid and drift MHD effects and keep the fidelity of the formulation by incorporating the numerical method based on the Riccati transformation when quantifying the inner-layer Delta. The proposed scheme reproduces not only the predicted responses in essentially all asymptotic regimes but also with continuous transitions as well as improved accuracies. In particular, the Delta variations across the inertial regimes with viscous or semi-collisional effects have been further resolved, in comparison with additional analytic solutions. The results imply greater shielding of the electromagnetic torque at the layer than what would be expected by earlier work when the viscous or semi-collisional effects can compete against the inertial effects, and also due to the intermediate regulation by kinetic Alfven wave resonances as rotation slows down. These are important features that can alter the nonaxisymmetric plasma responses including the field penetration by external fields or island seeding process in rotating tokamak plasmas.
Liquid metal can create a renewable protective surface on plasma facing components (PFC), with an additional advantage of deuterium pumping and the prospect of tritium extraction if liquid lithium (LL) is used and maintained below 450 C, the temperature above which LL vapor pressure begins to contaminate the plasma. LM can also be utilized as an efficient coolant, driven by the Lorentz force created with the help of the magnetic field in fusion devices. Capillary porous systems can serve as a conduit of LM and simultaneously provide stabilization of the LM flow, protecting against spills into the plasma. Recently a combination of a fast-flowing LM cooling system with a porous plasma facing wall (CPSF) was investigated [Khodak and Maingi (2021)]. The system takes an advantage of a magnetohydrodynamics velocity profile, as well as attractive LM properties to promote efficient heat transfer from the plasma to the LL at low pumping energy cost, relative to the incident heat flux on the PFC. In case of a disruption leading to excessive heat flux from the plasma to the LM PFCs, LL evaporation can stabilize the PFC surface temperature, due to high evaporation heat and apparent vapor shielding. The proposed CPSF was optimized analytically for the conditions of a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility [Kessel et al. (2019)]: 10T toroidal field and 10 MW/m2 peak incident heat flux. Computational fluid dynamics analysis confirmed that a CPSF system with 2.5 mm square channels can pump enough LL so that no additional coolant is needed.
The item included here is a collection of wave profiles collected and presented in the accompanying paper: Rucks, M. J., Winey, J. M., Toyoda, T., Gupta, Y. M., & Duffy, T. S. (in review). "Shock compression of fluorapatite to 120 GPa" Submitted to Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.
This dataset includes individual CIF files with the refined structure of fluorapatite under compression to 61 GPa. The structures have been discussed in detail in the accompanying manuscript "Single-crystal X-ray diffraction of fluorapatite to 61 GPa"
Wang, Yin; Gilson, Erik; Ebrahimi, Fatima; Goodman, Jeremy; Ji, Hantao
Abstract:
Source data for the article "Observation of Axisymmetric Standard Magnetorotational Instability in the Laboratory" published in Physical Review Letters.
This archive contains spike trains simultaneously recorded from ganglion cells in the tiger salamander retina with a multi-electrode array while viewing a repeated natural movie clip. These data have been analyzed in previous papers, notably Puchalla et al. Neuron 2005 and Schneidman et al. Nature 2006.
Kraus, B. Frances; Gao, Lan; Hill, K. W.; Bitter, M.; Efthimion, P. C.; Hollinger, R.; Wang, Shoujun; Song, Huanyu; Nedbailo, R.; Rocca, J. J.; Mancini, R. C.; MacDonald, M. J.; Beatty, C. B.; Shepherd, R.
Abstract:
A high-resolution x-ray spectrometer was coupled with an ultrafast x-ray streak camera to produce time-resolved line shape spectra measured from hot, solid-density plasmas. A Bragg crystal was placed near a laser-produced plasma to maximize throughput; alignment tolerances were established by raytracing. The streak camera produced single-shot time-resolved spectra, heavily sloped due to photon time-of-flight differences, with sufficient reproducibility to accumulate photon statistics. The images are time-calibrated by the slope of streaked spectra and dewarped to generate spectra emitted at different times defined at the source. The streaked spectra demonstrate the evolution of spectral shoulders and other features on ps timescales, showing the feasibility of plasma parameter measurements on the rapid timescales necessary to study high-energy-density plasmas.
Hill, K. W.; Gao, L.; Kraus, B. F.; Bitter, M.; Efthimion, P. C.; Pablant, N. A.; Schneider, M. B.; Thorn, D. B.; Chen, H.; Kauffman, R. L.; Liedahl, D. A.; MacDonald, M. J.; MacPhee, A. G.; Scott, H. A.; Stoupin, S.; Doron, R.; Stambulchik, E.; Maron, Y.; Lahmann, B.
Abstract:
Numerical data used to draw the figures in the manuscript
This is the supplemental material for the manuscript "Verification, validation, and results of an approximate model for the stress of a Tokamak toroidal field coil at the inboard midplane" submitted to Fusion Engineering and Design. This material includes PDF writeups of the derivations of the axisymmetric extended plane strain model, the elastic properties smearing model, and 20+ MATLAB scripts and functions which implement the model and generate the figures in the paper.
