The experimental characteristics of divertor detachment in the JET tokamak with the Mark I pumped divertor are presented for Ohmic, L-mode and ELMy H-mode experiments with the main emphasis on discharges with deuterium fuelling only. The range over which divertor detachment is observed for the various regimes as well as the influence of divertor configuration, direction of the toroidal field, divertor target material and active pumping on detachment will be described. The observed detachment characteristics such as the existence of a considerable electron pressure drop along the field lines in the scrape-off layer, and the compatibility of the decrease in plasma flux to the divertor plate with the observed increase of neutral pressure and the D α emission from the divertor region will be examined in the light of existing results from analytical and numerical models for plasma detachment. Finally, a method to evaluate the degree and window of detachment is proposed and all the observations of the JET Mark I divertor experiments summarised in the light of this new quantitative definition of divertor detachment.

A low density H-mode plasma has been selected for detailed inter-ELM modelling by the SOLPS code package, with the coupled treatment of its plasma (fluid code B2) and neutral (Monte-Carlo code Eirene) parts. Good quality measured midplane density and temperature profiles, covering the pedestal region and stretching far into the SOL, as well as several other parameters and profiles measured in the divertor, have enabled testing the consistency of code solutions with experiment. Once the upstream, midplane profiles, have been fitted, and the global parameters (e.g. input power into the computational grid, radiated power) matched, the code reproduced experimental profiles and control parameters in the divertor with the accuracy within a factor 2. Deviations of modelled parameters from the experiment were found around the strike point position where most of the power was deposited on the target. The deviations are consistent among themselves and all point to one common problem with the modelling: the predicted divertor electron temperature is too low, and the density too high, compared with the experiment. The largest inconsistency between the code and experiment was in the magnitude of the peak H α radiation in the outer divertor, which was larger by a factor of 2 in the code simulations. In addition, the code predicts a somewhat higher sub-divertor neutral flux, but lower carbon impurity content in the edge plasma than in the experiment, as well as lower CIII emission. The discrepancy between H α profiles can to a large degree be attributed to profile effects: the simulated H α emission profiles are narrower than in the experiment, reflecting the tendency for the neutral-plasma mix to congregate excessively around the strike point in the modelling. At the same time, the integrated H α emission matches very well with the experiment.Extensive sensitivity studies of the influence of variations in input parameters and assumptions of the code on the modelled divertor conditions have been conducted. They have not resulted in an identification of any SOLPS input/control parameters capable of removing the main disagreement between the code output and experiment. A possibility for parallel transport effects related to low collisionality to increase the effective plasma temperature near the strike point position, or for increased perpendicular transport by neutrals (due to some missing reactions in Eirene) to widen the target profiles, will be explored in the future.2

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A charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (CXRS) diagnostic has been established on JET to study fully stripped low-Z species. Ion temperature in the plasma centre is measured from visible lines of helium, carbon and oxygen excited by charge exchange with heating neutral beam particles. Coincident cold components produced at the plasma edge are apparent on helium and carbon spectra and inost spectra are subject to accidental blending from other species' edge plasma emission. The charge exchange feature can be isolated from the various composite lines and all three impurities agree on the same temperature within experimental error. Observed column emissivities are converted into absolute impurity densities using a neutral beam attenuation code and charge exchange effective rate coefficients. Comprehensive new calculations have been performed to obtain the effective rate coefficients. The models take detailed account of cascading and the influence of the plasma environment in causing I-mixing, and allow the n-dependence of the rate coefficients to be addressed experimentally. The effective ion charge reconstructed from simultaneous measurements of the densities of dominant impurities shows good agreement with the value inferred from visible Bremsstrahlung. Some illustrative results are shown for helium (helium discharge or minority r.f. heating), carbon and oxygen concentrations monitored during characteristic operating regimes.

The understanding and predictive capability of transport physics and plasma confinement is reviewed from the perspective of achieving reactor-scale burning plasmas in the ITER tokamak, for both core and edge plasma regions. Very considerable progress has been made in understanding, controlling and predicting tokamak transport across a wide variety of plasma conditions and regimes since the publication of the ITER Physics Basis (IPB) document (1999 Nucl. Fusion 39 2137–2664). Major areas of progress considered here follow. (1) Substantial improvement in the physics content, capability and reliability of transport simulation and modelling codes, leading to much increased theory/experiment interaction as these codes are increasingly used to interpret and predict experiment. (2) Remarkable progress has been made in developing and understanding regimes of improved core confinement. Internal transport barriers and other forms of reduced core transport are now routinely obtained in all the leading tokamak devices worldwide. (3) The importance of controlling the H-mode edge pedestal is now generally recognized. Substantial progress has been made in extending high confinement H-mode operation to the Greenwald density, the demonstration of Type I ELM mitigation and control techniques and systematic explanation of Type I ELM stability. Theory-based predictive capability has also shown progress by integrating the plasma and neutral transport with MHD stability. (4) Transport projections to ITER are now made using three complementary approaches: empirical or global scaling, theory-based transport modelling and dimensionless parameter scaling (previously, empirical scaling was the dominant approach). For the ITER base case or the reference scenario of conventional ELMy H-mode operation, all three techniques predict that ITER will have sufficient confinement to meet its design target of Q = 10 operation, within similar uncertainties.