English

The constraint of plasma power balance on runaway avoidance

Plasma Physics 2023-02-01 v2

Abstract

In a post-thermal-quench plasma, mitigated or unmitigated, the plasma power balance is mostly between collisional or Ohmic heating and plasma radiative cooling. In a plasma of atomic mixture {nα}\{n_\alpha\} with α\alpha labeling the atomic species, the power balance sets the plasma temperature, ion charge state distribution {nαi}\{n_\alpha^i\} with ii the charge number, and through the electron temperature TeT_e and ion charge state distribution {nαi},\{n_\alpha^i\}, the parallel electric field E.E_\parallel. Since the threshold electric field for runaway avalanche growth EavE_{av} is also set by the atomic mixture, ion charge state distribution and its derived quantity, the electron density ne,n_e, the plasma power balance between Ohmic heating and radiative cooling imposes a stringent constraint on the plasma regime for avoiding and minimizing runaways when a fusion-grade tokamak plasma is rapidly terminated.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2210.10925,
  title  = {The constraint of plasma power balance on runaway avoidance},
  author = {Christopher J. McDevitt and Xian-Zhu Tang and Christopher J. Fontes and Prashant Sharma and Hyun-Kyung Chung},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.10925},
  year   = {2023}
}