Abstract. Tungsten (W) has moved into the focus of fusion research as being a main candidate for the plasma facing components (PFC) of ITER and a future fusion reactor. A main ingredient for understanding the influence of W as a plasma impurity and its impact on the plasma is the spatially resolved, spectroscopic diagnosis of W. The focus of the experimental investigations at ASDEX Upgrade is on the most intense emissions of W-ions (about I-like W

First experiments with non-axisymmetric magnetic perturbations, toroidal mode number n = 2, produced by newly installed in-vessel saddle coils in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak show significant reduction of plasma energy loss and peak divertor power load associated with type-I Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) in high-confinement mode plasmas. ELM mitigation is observed above an edge density threshold and is obtained both with magnetic perturbations that are resonant and not resonant with the edge safety factor profile. Compared with unperturbed type-I ELMy reference plasmas, plasmas with mitigated ELMs show similar confinement, similar plasma density and lower tungsten impurity concentration.

The behaviour of tungsten in the core of hybrid scenario plasmas in JET with the ITER-like wall is analysed and modelled with a combination of neoclassical and gyrokinetic codes. In these discharges, good confinement conditions can be maintained only for the first 2–3 s of the high power phase. Later W accumulation is regularly observed, often accompanied by the onset of magneto-hydrodynamical activity, in particular neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs), both of which have detrimental effects on the global energy confinement. The dynamics of the accumulation process is examined, taking into consideration the concurrent evolution of the background plasma profiles, and the possible onset of NTMs. Two time slices of a representative discharge, before and during the accumulation process, are analysed with two independent methods, in order to reconstruct the W density distribution over the poloidal cross-section. The same time slices are modelled, computing both neoclassical and turbulent transport components and consistently including the impact of centrifugal effects, which can be significant in these plasmas, and strongly enhance W neoclassical transport. The modelling closely reproduces the observations and identifies inward neoclassical convection due to the density peaking of the bulk plasma in the central region as the main cause of the accumulation. The change in W neoclassical convection is directly produced by the transient behaviour of the main plasma density profile, which is hollow in the central region in the initial part of the high power phase of the discharge, but which develops a significant density peaking very close to the magnetic axis in the later phase. The analysis of a large set of discharges provides clear indications that this effect is generic in this scenario. The unfavourable impact of the onset of NTMs on the W behaviour, observed in several discharges, is suggested to be a consequence of a detrimental combination of the effects of neoclassical transport and of the appearance of an island.

The tungsten programme in ASDEX Upgrade is pursued towards a full high-Z device. The spectroscopic diagnostic and the cooling factor of W have been extended and refined. The W-coated surfaces represent now a fraction of 65 % (24.8 m 2). The only two major components which are not yet coated are the strikepoint region of the lower divertor as well as the limiters at the low field side. While extending the W surfaces, the W concentration and the discharge behaviour have changed gradually pointing to critical issues when operating with a W wall: anomalous transport in the plasma centre should not be too low, otherwise neoclassical accumulation can occur. A very successful remedy is the addition of central RF heating at the 20-30% level. Regimes with low ELM activity show increased impurity concentration over the whole plasma radius. These discharges can be cured by increasing the ELM frequency through pellet ELM pacemaking or by higher heating power. Moderate gas puffing also mitigates the impurity influx and penetration, however at the expense of lower confinement. The erosion yield at the low field side guard limiter can be as high as 10 3 and fast particle losses from NBI were identified to contribute a significant part to the W sputtering. Discharges run in the upper, W coated divertor do not show higher W concentrations than comparable discharges in the lower C-based divertor.

Feedback control of the divertor power load by means of nitrogen seeding has been developed into a routine operational tool in the all-tungsten clad ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. For heating powers above about 12 MW, its use has become inevitable to protect the divertor tungsten coating under boronized conditions. The use of nitrogen seeding is accompanied by improved energy confinement due to higher core plasma temperatures, which more than compensates the negative effect of plasma dilution by nitrogen on the neutron rate. This paper describes the technical details of the feedback controller. A simple model for its underlying physics allows the prediction of its behaviour and the optimization of the feedback gain coefficients used. Storage and release of nitrogen in tungsten surfaces were found to have substantial impact on the behaviour of the seeded plasma, resulting in increased nitrogen consumption with unloaded walls and a latency of nitrogen release over several discharges after its injection. Nitrogen is released from tungsten plasma facing components with moderate surface temperature in a sputtering-like process; therefore no uncontrolled excursions of the nitrogen wall release are observed. Overall, very stable operation of the high-Z tokamak is possible with nitrogen seeding, where core radiative losses are avoided due to its low atomic charge Z and a high ELM frequency is maintained.

ASDEX Upgrade has successfully started the second experimental campaign with a full tungsten coverage of the plasma facing components and without using a boronisation for machine conditioning. The tungsten erosion at all relevant positions in the main chamber and the divertor was investigated. The outer divertor is by far the strongest source region, especially in discharges with high divertor temperature in-between ELMs. In the main chamber, the central column is usually the first limiting structure and produces then larger W erosion fluxes than the outboard limiters. Nevertheless, the tungsten influx from the outboard limiters has a much stronger effect on the tungsten content in the confined plasma. An increase of the available power from the fly-wheel generator allowed for improved H-mode operation at 1 MA, and H factors in the range of 1.2 could be achieved at acceptable W concentrations of about 2¢10 .

Observations in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak show a correlation between the gradient of the intrinsic toroidal rotation profile and the logarithmic gradient of the electron density profile. The intrinsic toroidal rotation in the center of the plasma reverses from co- to countercurrent when the logarithmic density gradients are large, and the turbulence is either dominated by trapped electron modes or is at the transition between ion temperature gradient and trapped electron modes. A study based on local gyrokinetic calculations suggests that the dominant trend in the observations can be explained by the combination of residual stresses produced by E × B and profile shearing mechanisms.

Abstract. The installation of a new poloidal charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (CXRS) diagnostic at ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) has enabled the determination of the radial electric field, , using the radial force balance of impurity ions.has been derived from charge exchange (CX) spectra measured on different impurity species, such as He 2+ , B 5+ , C 6+ and Ne 10+ . The resulting profiles are found to be identical within the uncertainties regardless of the impurity species used, thus, demonstrating the validity of the diagnostic technique. The profile has been compared to the main ion pressure gradient term, which is found to be the dominant contribution at the plasma edge, thus, supporting that the well is created by the main ion species. The profile has been measured in different confinement regimes including L-, I-and H-mode. The depth of the well and the magnitude of the shear are correlated with the ion pressure at the pedestal top. The temporal evolution of the measured CX profiles and the resulting have been studied during an ELM cycle. At the ELM crash, the minimum is less deep resulting in a reduction of the E×B shear. Within 2 ms after the ELM crash, the edge kinetic profiles have nearly recovered and the well is observed to recover simultaneously. In high density type-I ELM mitigated H-mode plasmas, obtained via externally applied magnetic perturbations with toroidal mode number = 2, no clear effect on due to the magnetic perturbations has been observed.