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251. Resonance in Fast-Wave Amplitude in the Periphery of Cylindrical Plasmas and Application to Edge Losses of Wave Heating Power in Tokamaks

Author(s):
Perkins, R.J.; Hosea, J.C.; Bertelli, N.; Taylor, G.; Wilson, J.R.
Abstract:
Heating magnetically confined plasmas using waves in the ion-cyclotron range of frequencies typically requires coupling these waves over a steep density gradient. This process has produced an unexpected and deleterious phenomenon on the National Spherical Torus eXperiment (NSTX): a prompt loss of wave power along magnetic field lines in front of the antenna to the divertor. Understanding this loss may be key to achieving effective heating and expanding the operational space of NSTX-Upgrade. Here, we propose that a new type of mode, which conducts a significant fraction of the total wave power in the low-density peripheral plasma, is driving these losses. We demonstrate the existence of such modes, which are distinct from surface modes and coaxial modes, in a cylindrical cold-plasma model when a half wavelength structure fits into the region outside the core plasma. The latter condition generalizes the previous hypothesis regarding the occurence of the edge losses and may explain why full-wave simulations predict these losses in some cases but not others. If valid, this condition implies that outer gap control is a potential strategy for mitigating the losses in NSTX-Upgrade in addition to raising the magnetic field or influencing the edge density.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
July 2016

253. Saturation of Alfven modes in tokamaks

Author(s):
White, R; Gorelenkov, N.; Gorelenkova, M.; Podesta, M.; Ethier, S.; Chen, Y.
Abstract:
Growth of Alfven modes driven unstable by a distribution of high energy particles up to saturation is investigated with a guiding center code, using numerical eigenfunctions produced by linear theory and a numerical high energy particle distribution, in order to make detailed comparison with experiment and with models for saturation amplitudes and the modification of beam profiles. Two innovations are introduced. First, a very noise free means of obtaining the mode-particle energy and momentum transfer is introduced, and secondly, a spline representation of the actual beam particle distribution is used.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
November 2016

254. Sherlock Movie Watching Dataset

Author(s):
Chen, Janice
Abstract:
Our daily lives revolve around sharing experiences and memories with others. When different people recount the same events, how similar are their underlying neural representations? In this study, participants viewed a fifty-minute audio-visual movie, then verbally described the events while undergoing functional MRI. These descriptions were completely unguided and highly detailed, lasting for up to forty minutes. As each person spoke, event-specific spatial patterns were reinstated (movie-vs.-recall correlation) in default network, medial temporal, and high-level visual areas; moreover, individual event patterns were highly discriminable and similar between people during recollection (recall-vs.-recall similarity), suggesting the existence of spatially organized memory representations. In posterior medial cortex, medial prefrontal cortex, and angular gyrus, activity patterns during recall were more similar between people than to patterns elicited by the movie, indicating systematic reshaping of percept into memory across individuals. These results reveal striking similarity in how neural activity underlying real-life memories is organized and transformed in the brains of different people as they speak spontaneously about past events.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
26 October 2016

255. Supplementary Model Output to "Climate, soil organic layer, and nitrogen jointly drive forest development after fire in the North American boreal zone"

Author(s):
Trugman, Anna
Abstract:
This dataset contains all the model output used to generate the figures and data reported in the article "Climate, soil organic layer, and nitrogen jointly drive forest development after fire in the North American boreal zone". The data was generated during spring 2015 using the a modified version of the Ecosystem Demography model version 2, provided as a supplement accompanying the article. The data was generated using the computational resources supported by the PICSciE OIT High Performance Computing Center and Visualization Laboratory at Princeton University. The dataset contains a pdf Readme file which explains in detail how the data can be used. Users are recommended to go through this file before using the data.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
2016

256. Theory based scaling of edge turbulence and implications for the scrape-off layer width

Author(s):
Myra, J.R.; Russell, D.A.; Zweben, S.J.
Abstract:
Turbulence and plasma parameter data from the National Spherical Torus Experiment NSTX [M. Ono, S.M. Kaye, Y.-K.M. Peng, G. Barnes et al., Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)] is examined and interpreted based on various theoretical estimates. In particular, quantities of interest for assessing the role of turbulent transport on the midplane scrape-off layer heat flux width are assessed. Because most turbulence quantities exhibit large scatter and little scaling within a given operation mode, this paper focuses on length and time scales and dimensionless parameters between operational modes including Ohmic, low (L), and high (H) modes using a large NSTX edge turbulence database [S.J. Zweben, W.M. Davis, S.M. Kaye, J.R. Myra et al., Nucl. Fusion 55, 093035 (2015)]. These are compared with theoretical estimates for drift and interchange rates, profile modification saturation levels, a resistive ballooning condition, and dimensionless parameters characterizing L and high H mode conditions. It is argued that the underlying instability physics governing edge turbulence in different operational modes is in fact similar, and is consistent with curvature-driven drift ballooning. Saturation physics, however, is dependent on the operational mode. Five dimensionless parameters for drift-interchange turbulence are obtained and employed to assess the important of turbulence in setting the scrape-off layer heat flux width lambda_q and its scaling. An explicit proportionality of the width lambda_q to safety factor and major radius (qR) is obtained under these conditions. Quantitative estimates and reduced model numerical simulations suggest that the turbulence mechanism is not negligible in determining lambda_q in NSTX, at least for high plasma current discharges.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
November 2016

257. Three New Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometers on NSTX-U for Impurity Monitoring

Author(s):
Weller, M.E.; Beiersdorfer, P.; Soukhanovskii, V.; Magee, E.W.; Scotti, F.
Abstract:
Three extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectrometers have been mounted on the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade (NSTX-U). All three are flat-field grazing-incidence spectrometers and are dubbed X-ray and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (8 ñ 70 ≈), Long-Wavelength Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (190 ñ 440 ≈), and Metal Monitor and Lithium Spectrometer Assembly (MonaLisa, 50 ñ 220 ≈). XEUS and LoWEUS were previously implemented on NSTX to monitor impurities from low- to high-Z sources and to study impurity transport while MonaLisa is new and provides the system increased spectral coverage. The spectrometers will also be a critical diagnostic on the planned laser blow-off (LBO) system for NSTX-U, which will be used for impurity edge and core ion transport studies, edge-transport code development, and benchmarking atomic physics codes.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
November 2016

258. Time dependent analysis of visible helium line-ratios for electron temperature and density diagnostic using synthetic simulations on NSTX-U

Author(s):
Munoz Burgos, J.M.; Barbui, T.; Schmitz, O.; Stutman, D.; Tritz, K.
Abstract:
Helium line-ratios for electron temperature (Te) and density (ne) plasma diagnostic in the Scrape-Off-Layer (SOL) and Edge regions of tokamaks are widely used. Due to their intensities and proximity of wavelengths, the singlet 667.8 and 728.1 nm, and triplet 706.5 nm visible lines have been typically preferred. Time- dependency of the triplet line (706.5 nm) has been previously analyzed in detail by including transient effects on line-ratios during gas-puff diagnostic applications. In this work, several line-ratio combinations within each of the two spin systems are analyzed with the purpose of eliminating transient effects to extend the application of this powerful diagnostic to high temporal resolution characterization of plasmas. The analysis is done using synthetic emission modeling and diagnostic for low electron density NSTX SOL plasma conditions for several visible lines. This analysis employs both quasi-static equilibrium and time-dependent models in order to evaluate transient effects of the atomic population levels that may affect the derived electron temperatures and densities as a helium gas-puff penetrates the plasma. Ratios between the most intense lines are usually preferred due to their higher signal to noise ratio. The analysis of a wider range of spectral lines will help to extend this powerful diagnostic to experiments where the wavelength range of the measured spectra may be constrained either by limitations of the spectrometer, or by other conflicting lines from different ions.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
November 2016

259. Understanding the dynamics and energetics of magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma: Review of recent progress on selected fronts

Author(s):
Yamada, M.; Yoo, J.; Myers, C. E.
Abstract:
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process at work in laboratory, space and astrophysical plasmas, in which magnetic field lines change their topology and convert magnetic energy to plasma particles by acceleration and heating. One of the most important problems in reconnection research has been to understand why reconnection occurs so much faster than predicted by MHD theory. Following the recent pedagogical review of this subject [M. Yamada, R. Kulsrud, and H. Ji, Rev. Mod. Phys. {\bf 82}, 603 (2010)], this paper presents a review of more recent discoveries and findings in the research of fast magnetic reconnection in laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasmas. In spite of the huge difference in physical scales, we find remarkable commonality between the characteristics of the magnetic reconnection in laboratory and space plasmas. In this paper, we will focus especially on the energy flow, a key feature of the reconnection process. In particular the experimental results on the energy conversion and partitioning in a laboratory reconnection layer [M. Yamada {\it et al.}, Nat. Commu. {\bf 5}, 4474 (2014)] are discussed and compared with quantitative estimates based on two-fluid analysis. In the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX), we find that energy deposition to electrons is localized near the X-point and is mostly from the electric field component perpendicular to the magnetic field. The mechanisms of ion acceleration and heating are also identified and a systematic and quantitative study on the inventory of converted energy within a reconnection layer with a well-defined but variable boundary. The measured energy partition in a reconnection region of similar effective size ($L \approx$ 3 ion skin depths) of the Earth's magneto-tail [J. Eastwood {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 110}, 225001 (2013)] is notably consistent with our laboratory results. Finally, to study the global aspects of magnetic reconnection, we have carried out a laboratory experiment on the stability criteria for solar flare eruptions, including {\textquotedblleft}storage and release{\textquotedblright} mechanisms of magnetic energy. We show that toroidal magnetic flux generated by magnetic relaxation (reconnection) processes generates a new stabilizing force which prevents plasma eruption. This result has lead us to discovery of a new stabilizing force for solar flares [C. E. Myers {\it et al.}, Nature {\bf 528}, 526 (2015)]
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
May 2016

260. Validation and benchmarking of two particle-in-cell codes for a glow discharge

Author(s):
Carlsson, J.; Khrabrov, A.; Kaganovich, I.; Sommerer, T.; Keating, D.
Abstract:
The two particle-in-cell codes EDIPIC and LSP are benchmarked and validated for a parallel-plate glow discharge in helium, in which the axial electric field had been carefully measured, primarily to investigate and improve the fidelity of their collision models. The scattering anisotropy of electron-impact ionization, as well as the value of the secondary-electron emission yield, are not well known in this case. The experimental uncertainty for the emission yield corresponds to a factor of two variation in the cathode current. If the emission yield is tuned to make the cathode current computed by each code match the experiment, the computed electric fields are in excellent agreement with each other, and within about 10% of the experimental value. The non-monotonic variation of the width of the cathode fa ll with the applied voltage seen in the experiment is reproduced by both codes. The electron temperature in the negative glow is within experimental error bars for both codes, but the density of slow trapped electrons is underestimated. A more detailed code comparison don e for several synthetic cases of electron-beam injection into helium gas shows that the codes are in excellent agreement for ionization rate, as well as for elastic and excitation collisions with isotropic scattering pattern. The remaining significant discrepancies between the two codes are due to differences in their electron binary-collision models, and for anisotropic scattering due to elastic and excitation collisions.
Type:
Dataset
Issue Date:
2017