EFDA-JET-CP(04)07/15

Confinement of Charged Fusion Products in Reversed Shear Tokamak Plasmas

Measurements of the decay of gamma (g) rays (from interactions of alpha particles with beryllium) in JET Trace Tritium Experiments have demonstrated a significant sensitivity ofg-ray emission to the magnetic shear in the plasma core. In discharges with relatively high currents (I>2MA) the g-decay rate observed after a short tritium NBI blip corresponded with the classical slowing down rate of fusion alphas in the case of monotonic q-profile. However, in discharges with a current hole of the size of about 1/3 of the plasma radius and in low current (1MA) discharges the measured decay time was much shorter than the classical slowing down time. Thus a strong reversed shear indicates a degradation of fast alpha confinement similar to that at low current (Ip = 1MA). Here we present first results of the numerical simulation of the relaxation of fast alpha distribution based on a kinetic model for NBI ions and fusion alphas in post blip plasmas. Modelling results are in a qualitative agreement with measurements in reversed shear and monotonic current plasmas.
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