Alpha Particle Losses from Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor Deuterium-tritium Plasmas

Alpha Particle Losses from Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor Deuterium-tritium Plasmas
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Total Pages:
Release: 2001
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Because alpha particle losses can have a significant influence on tokamak reactor viability, the loss of deuterium-tritium alpha particles from the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) has been measured under a wide range of conditions. In TFTR, first orbit loss and stochastic toroidal field ripple diffusion are always present. Other losses can arise due to magnetohydrodynamic instabilities or due to waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies. No alpha particle losses have yet been seen due to collective instabilities driven by alphas. Ion Bernstein waves can drive large losses of fast ions from TFTR, and details of those losses support one element of the alpha energy channeling scenario.

A New Interpretation of Alpha-particle-driven Instabilities in Deuterium-Tritium Experiments on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor

A New Interpretation of Alpha-particle-driven Instabilities in Deuterium-Tritium Experiments on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor
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Total Pages: 15
Release: 2003
Genre: Alpha rays
ISBN:

The original description of alpha-particle-driven instabilities in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) in terms of Toroidal Alfvin Eigenmodes (TAEs) remained inconsistent with three fundamental characteristics of the observations: (i) the variation of the mode frequency with toroidal mode number, (ii) the chirping of the mode frequency for a given toroidal mode number, and (iii) the anti-ballooning density perturbation of the modes. It is now shown that these characteristics can be explained by observing that cylindrical-like modes can exist in the weak magnetic shear region of the plasma that then make a transition to TAEs as the central safety factor decreases in time.