JET-P(91)10
Impurity Influx Model of Fast Tokamak Disruptions
The high plasma resistance observed in tokamak disruptions with a very rapid current decay is here attributed to cooling by a rapid influx of neutral atoms from the wall or limiter. It is suggested that this influx proceeds as a narrow front propagating from the edge to the centre of the plasma. The result of such a cooling, with carbon as the limiting material, is a drop in temperature to ~5eV and an increase in electron density by a factor ~5.