Transport analysis of injected impurities in currentless Heliotron E plasmas

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Abstract
Impurity transport in currentless Heliotron E plasmas is examined. The main aim of the experiment is to clarify the density dependence of impurity transport both in electron cyclotron heated (ECH) and neutral beam injected (NBI) plasmas. In experiments with a stationary electron density, the confinement time of impurities is determined as a function of the line averaged electron density. The inherent difference between ECH and NBI plasmas, observed in an earlier measurement, seems to have been masked by the operating conditions. From a direct comparison between NBI plasmas and simultaneous ECH and NBI heated plasmas of the same density, a pumping-out effect of impurities by the ECH pulse is established. From numerical analyses, the unexpected discrepancy between observed and calculated VUV spectral data can be explained by a charge exchange process. The observed impurity transport is found to be well described by a model which incorporates the effects of radial diffusion and inward convection. The inward flow does not seem to be due to the plasma potential because the flow is also observed in ECH plasmas where the heating power is expected to contribute to a reversed potential. The flow velocity is of the order of the classical friction between background ions and seems to play only a minor role in various aspects of impurity transport in NBI plasmas, such as impurity accumulation. The variety in impurity transport in Heliotron E plasmas is best understood by changes in the diffusion coefficient.