Publication Date:
2021
abstract:
Dimensionless experiments test the invariance of plasma physics to changes in the
dimensional plasma parameters, when the canonical dimensionless parameters, such as P*,
V*, ?, q, ... are conserved. In particular, isotope identity experiments exploit the change in
hydrogen isotope ion mass A = mi/mp to obtain plasmas with identical dimensionless profiles
in the same tokamak. With this technique, NBI-heated L-mode and type I ELMy H-mode
plasmas at moderate beta have been obtained in JET with the Be/W ITER-like wall in H and
D, with similar profiles of the dimensionless plasma parameters Pi*, V*, ?th, q, as well as
similar Zeff, Ti/Te and Mach-number profiles. In the core confinement region of these
plasmas the dominant instabilities are ITG modes both in H and in D.
The dimensionless thermal energy confinement time ?i ?E,th is identical in the L-mode
isotope identity pair, indicating lack of isotope mass dependence of the dimensionless ?E,th.,
and the invariance principle is satisfied in the core confinement region. In the type I ELMy
H-mode pair, similarity in H and D is found for both core and pedestal regions for the ELMaveraged profiles, but not for the pre-ELM profiles. ?i ?E,th is not identical in the H-mode
pair and yields an isotope mass dependence ?i ?E,th ~ A0.51, consistent with the favourable
isotope mass scaling of the dimensional TE,th observed in JET-ILW. Predictive flux driven
simulations of core plasma transport with JETTO-TGLF (L-mode pair) and TRANSP-TGLF
(H-mode pair) are in agreement with experiment for both isotopes: the stiff core heat
transport, typical of JET-ILW NBI L-modes and NBI H-modes at moderate beta values,
overcomes the local gyro-Bohm scaling of gradient-driven TGLF, explaining the lack of
isotope mass dependence in the core confinement region of the L-mode plasmas and the
increase of confinement with isotope mass in the H-mode plasmas, which originates in the
pedestal region. The effect of ExB shearing from sheared toroidal rotation on the predicted
core heat and particle transport channels is found to be negligible in the low beta and low
momentum input L-mode plasmas, while it becomes apparent in the H-mode identity pair at
moderate beta.
Iris type:
04.02 Abstract in Atti di convegno
Keywords:
Plasma Physics; Isotope Identity Experiments; JET; ITER-like Wall
List of contributors: