The impact of fusion-born alpha particles on runaway electron dynamics in ITER disruptions

Abstract

In the event of a tokamak disruption in a D-T plasma, fusion-born alpha particles take several milliseconds longer to thermalise than the background. As the damping rates drop drastically following the several orders of magnitudes drop of temperature, Toroidal Alfvén Eigenmodes (TAEs) can be driven by alpha particles in the collapsing plasma before the onset of the current quench. We employ kinetic simulations of the alpha particle distribution and show that the TAEs can reach sufficiently strong saturation amplitudes to cause significant core runaway electron (RE) transport in unmitigated ITER disruptions. As the eigenmodes do not extend to the plasma edge, this effect leads to an increase of the RE plateau current. Mitigation via massive material injection however changes the Alfvén frequency and can lead to mode suppression. A combination of the TAE-caused core RE transport with other perturbation sources could lead to a drop of runaway current in unmitigated disruptions.

Characteristics of the Alfvénic activity during the current quench in ASDEX Upgrade

“…The benign termination of the RE beam [18][19][20] is a promising candidate for a mitigation technique. Plasma waves might contribute to the avoidance of the formation of strong RE beams, as the level of magnetic perturbations [21] and Alfvénic activity in post-disruption plasmas [22,23] can have a strong influence on a subsequent runaway current formation. In the contributions by Lvovskiy et al [24,25], they present instabilities observed during disruptions in the tokamak DIII-D, which could deconfine the initial seed electrons, hence suppressing the formation of a strong RE beam.…”