Highly radiative plasmas for local transport studies and power and particle handling in reactor regimes

Abstract
To study the applicability of artificially enhanced impurity radiation for mitigation of the plasma-limiter interaction in reactor regimes, krypton and xenon gases were injected into TFTR supershots and high-li plasmas. At neutral beam injection (NBI) powers PB ≥ 30 MW, carbon influxes (blooms) were suppressed, leading to improved energy confinement and neutron production in both D and DT plasmas, and the highest DT fusion energy production (7.6 MJ) in a TFTR pulse. Comparisons of the measured radiated power profiles with predictions of the MIST impurity transport code have guided studies of highly-radiative plasmas in ITER. The response of the electron and ion temperatures to greatly increased radiative losses from the electrons was used to study thermal transport mechanisms.