ALBERT

Notizen: The confinement and the stability properties of the DIII-D tokamak [Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research 1986 (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1987), Vol. 1, p. 159] high-performance discharges are evaluated in terms of rotational and magnetic shear, with an emphasis on the recent experimental results obtained from the negative central magnetic shear (NCS) experiments. In NCS discharges, a core transport barrier is often observed to form inside the NCS region accompanied by a reduction in core fluctuation amplitudes. Increasing negative magnetic shear contributes to the formation of this core transport barrier, but by itself is not sufficient to fully stabilize the toroidal drift mode (trapped-electron-ηi mode) to explain this formation. Comparison of the Doppler shift shear rate to the growth rate of the ηi mode suggests that the large core E×B flow shear can stabilize this mode and broaden the region of reduced core transport. Ideal and resistive stability analysis indicates the performance of NCS discharges with strongly peaked pressure profiles is limited by the resistive interchange mode to low βN≤2.3. This mode is insensitive to the details of the rotational and the magnetic shear profiles. A new class of discharges, which has a broad region of weak or slightly negative magnetic shear (WNS), is described. The WNS discharges have broader pressure profiles and higher β values than the NCS discharges, together with high confinement and high fusion reactivity. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: © American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: Transport phenomena are studied in Advanced Tokamak (AT) regimes in the DIII-D tokamak [Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research, 1986 (International Atomics Energy Agency, Vienna, 1987), Vol. I, p. 159], with the goal of developing understanding and control during each of three phases: Formation of the internal transport barrier (ITB) with counter neutral beam injection taking place when the heating power exceeds a threshold value of about 9 MW, contrasting to co-NBI injection, where Pthreshold〈2.5 MW. Expansion of the ITB is enhanced compared to similar co-injected discharges. Both differences are believed to arise from modification of the E×B shear dynamics when the sign of the rotation contribution is reversed. Sustainment of an AT regime with βNH89=9 for 16 confinement times has been accomplished in a discharge combining an ELMing H-mode (edge localized, high confinement mode) edge and an ITB, and exhibiting ion thermal transport down to 2–3 times neoclassical. The microinstabilities usually associated with ion thermal transport are predicted stable, implying that another mechanism limits performance. High frequency magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) activity is identified as the probable cause. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: The amplitude and frequency of modes driven in the edge region of tokamak high mode (H-mode) discharges [type I edge-localized modes (ELMs)] are shown to depend on the discharge shape. The measured pressure gradient threshold for instability and its scaling with discharge shape are compared with predictions from ideal magnetohydrodynamic theory for low toroidal mode number (n) instabilities driven by pressure gradient and current density and good agreement is found. Reductions in mode amplitude are observed in discharge shapes with either high squareness or low triangularity where the stability threshold in the edge pressure gradient is predicted to be reduced and the most unstable mode is expected to have higher values of n. The importance of access to the ballooning mode second stability regime is demonstrated through the changes in the ELM character that occur when second regime access is not available. An edge stability model is presented that predicts that there is a threshold value of n for second regime access and that the most unstable mode has n near this threshold. © 2000 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: Here Z, a 60 TW/5 MJ electrical accelerator located at Sandia National Laboratories, has been used to implode tungsten wire-array Z pinches. These arrays consisted of large numbers of tungsten wires (120–300) with wire diameters of 7.5 to 15 μm placed in a symmetric cylindrical array. The experiments used array diameters ranging from 1.75 to 4 cm and lengths from 1 to 2 cm. A 2 cm long, 4 cm diam tungsten array consisting of 240, 7.5 μm diam wires (4.1 mg mass) achieved an x-ray power of ∼200 TW and an x-ray energy of nearly 2 MJ. Spectral data suggest an optically thick, Planckian-like radiator below 1000 eV. One surprising experimental result was the observation that the total radiated x-ray energies and x-ray powers were nearly independent of pinch length. These data are compared with two-dimensional radiation magnetohydrodynamic code calculations. © 1998 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: Understanding drive symmetry in gas-filled hohlraums is currently of interest because the baseline design of the indirect drive ignition target for the planned National Ignition Facility uses a gas-filled hohlraum. This paper reports on the results of a series of experiments performed at the Nova laser [C. Bibeau et al. Appl. Opt. 31, 5799 (1992)] facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with the goal of understanding time-dependent drive symmetry in gas filled hohlraums. Time-dependent symmetry data from capsule implosions and reemission targets in gas-filled hohlraums are discussed. Results of symmetry measurements using thin wall gas-filled hohlraums are also discussed. The results show that the gas is effective in impeding the motion of the wall blowoff material, and that the resulting implosion performance of the capsule is not significantly degraded from vacuum results. The implosion symmetry in gas differs from vacuum results with similar laser pointing indicating a shift in beam position on the hohlraum wall and hotter drive at the capsule's poles than at the equator. A theory has been proposed to explain the observed shift as a plasma physics effect: beam steering due to filamentation and transverse plasma flows. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: Nearly 10 years of Nova [E. M. Campbell, Laser Part. Beams 9, 209 (1991)] experiments and analysis have lead to a relatively detailed quantitative and qualitative understanding of radiation drive in laser-heated hohlraums. Our most successful quantitative modeling tool is two-dimensional (2-D) LASNEX numerical simulations [G. B. Zimmerman and W. L. Kruer, Comments Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 2, 51 (1975)]. Analysis of the simulations provides us with insight into the physics of hohlraum drive. In particular we find hohlraum radiation conversion efficiency becomes quite high with longer pulses as the accumulated, high-Z blow-off plasma begins to radiate. Extensive Nova experiments corroborate our quantitative and qualitative understanding. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: In DIII-D [J. L. Luxon and L. G. Davis, Fusion Technol. 8, 441 (1985)] tokamak plasmas with an internal transport barrier (ITB), the comparison of gyrokinetic linear stability (GKS) predictions with experiments in both low and strong negative magnetic shear plasmas provide improved understanding for electron thermal transport within the plasma. Within a limited region just inside the ITB, the electron temperature gradient (ETG) modes appear to control the electron temperature gradient and, consequently, the electron thermal transport. The increase in the electron temperaturegradient with more strongly negative magnetic shear is consistent with the increase in the ETG mode marginal gradient. Closer to the magnetic axis the Te profile flattens and the ETG modes are predicted to be stable. With additional core electron heating, FIR scattering measurements near the axis show the presence of high k fluctuations (12 cm−1), rotating in the electron diamagnetic drift direction. This turbulence could impact electron transport and possibly also ion transport. Thermal diffusivities for electrons, and to a lesser degree ions, increase. The ETG mode can exist at this wave number, but it is computed to be robustly stable near the axis. Consequently, in the plasmas we have examined, calculations of drift wave linear stability do not explain the observed transport near the axis in plasmas with or without additional electron heating, and there are probably other processes controling transport in this region. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

Notizen: Gas-filled hohlraums are presently the base line ignition target design for the National Ignition Facility. Initial Nova [E. M. Campbell et al. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 57, 2101 (1986).] experiments on gas-filled hohlraums showed that radiation temperature was reduced due to stimulated Brillouin and stimulated Raman scattering losses and that implosion symmetry had shifted compared with vacuum hohlraums and calculations. Subsequent single beam experiments imaging thermal x-ray emission showed the shift is due to laser–plasma heating dynamics and filamentation in a flowing plasma. Experiments using a single beam have shown that scattering losses and effects of filamentation are reduced when the beam is spatially smoothed with a random phase plate or kinoform phase plate. Scattering is further reduced to less than 5% of the incident laser energy when temporal smoothing is added.

Notizen: X-ray powers on the order of 10 TW over an area of 4.5 mm2 are produced in the axial direction from the compression of a low-density foam target centered within a z-pinch on the Z generator.1 The x rays from this source are used for high-energy–density physics experiments, including the heating of hohlraums for inertial confinements fusion studies.2 In this article, detailed characteristics of this radiation source measured using an upgraded axial-radiation-diagnostic suite3 together with other on- and off-axis diagnostics are summarized and discussed in terms of Eulerian and Lagrangian radiation–magnetohydrodynamic code simulations. The source, characterized here, employs a nested array of 10-mm-long tungsten wires, at radii of 20 and 10 mm, having a total masses of 2 and 1 mg, and wire numbers of 240 and 120, respectively. The target is a 14 mg/cc CH2 foam cylinder of 5 mm diameter. The codes take into account the development of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability in the r–z plane, and provide integrated calculations of the implosion together with the x-ray generation. The radiation exiting the imploding target through the 4.5 mm2 aperture is measured primarily by the axial diagnostic suite that now includes diagnostics at an angle of ∼30° to the z axis. The near on-axis diagnostics include: (1) a seven-element filtered silicon-diode array,4 (2) a five-element filtered x-ray diffraction (XRD) array,5 (3) a six-element filtered PCD array,6 (4) a three-element bolometer,7 (5) time-resolved and time-integrating crystal spectrometers, and (6) two fast-framing x-ray pinhole cameras having 11 frames each. The filtered silicon diodes, XRDs, and PCDs are sensitive to 1–200, 140–2300, and 1000–4000 eV x rays, respectively. They (1) establish the magnitude of the prepluse generated during the run in of the imploding wire arrays, (2) measure the Planckian nature of the dominant thermal, and (3) nonthermal component of the emission. The bolometers and XRDs mounted on the near-normal and 30° LOS (line-of-sight) measure the total power and check the Lambertian nature of the emission. Additionally, a suite of filtered fast-framing x-ray pinhole cameras and silicon-diode arrays behind a transmission grating, mounted on LOSs nearly normal to the z axis, quantify the plasma plume exiting the aperture. The hard bremsstrahlung generated is estimated with both on- and off-axis shielded scintillator photomultiplier diagnostics. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.