Understanding how minority relativistic electron populations may dominate charge state balance and radiative cooling of a post-thermal quench tokamak plasma
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Chung, Hyun-Kyung
Zammit, Mark C
McDevitt, Christopher J
Colgan, James
Fontes, Christopher J
Tang, Xian-Zhu
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Abstract
Minority relativistic electron populations can occur in a range of complex plasmas. Of specific interest is when runaway electrons form among the presence of high-atomic-number ion species in a tokamak plasma discharge. It has been recently demonstrated that ion charge state distributions and radiation losses at low bulk electron temperatures can be dominated by relativistic electrons, even though their density is orders of magnitude lower. This was attributed to the relativistic enhancement of electron impact inelastic cross sections. In this work, we provide a closer inspection of the atomic physics underpinning this effect. We also demonstrate the consequences of runaway enhanced scattering on post-disruption tokamak fusion discharges with neon and argon impurities present. Effects on charge state distributions, radiation and spectral characteristics, and reduced-order modeling considerations are discussed.
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Physics of Plasmas
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29
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1
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© 2022 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and AIP Publishing. This article appeared in Physics of Plasmas 29, 012504 (2022) and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0071996
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Plasma physics; fusion plasmas; electrical discharges
Atomic and molecular physics
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Garland, NA; Chung, H-K; Zammit, MC; McDevitt, CJ; Colgan, J; Fontes, CJ; Tang, X-Z, Understanding how minority relativistic electron populations may dominate charge state balance and radiative cooling of a post-thermal quench tokamak plasma, Physics of Plasmas, 2022, 29 (1), pp. 012504