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- Title
The physics of turbulence localised to the tokamak divertor volume.
- Authors
Walkden, Nicholas; Riva, Fabio; Harrison, James; Militello, Fulvio; Farley, Thomas; Omotani, John; Lipschultz, Bruce
- Abstract
Fusion power plant designs based on magnetic confinement, such as the tokamak design, offer a promising route to sustainable fusion power but require robust exhaust solutions capable of tolerating intense heat and particle fluxes from the plasma at the core of the device. Turbulent plasma transport in the region where the interface between the plasma and the materials of the device is handled - called the divertor volume - is poorly understood, yet impacts several key factors ultimately affecting device performance. In this article a comprehensive study of the underlying physics of turbulence in the divertor volume is conducted using data collected in the final experimental campaign of the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak device, compared to high fidelity nonlinear simulations. The physics of the turbulence is shown to be strongly dependant on the geometry of the divertor volume - a potentially important result as the community looks to advanced divertor designs with complex geometry for future fusion power plants. These results lay the foundations of a first-principles physics basis for turbulent transport in the tokamak divertor, providing a critical step towards a predictive understanding of tokamak divertor plasma solutions. Fusion generated within magnetically confined plasmas offers a promising route to clean baseload energy but the intense heat and particle flux generated in the process presents a major challenge for future power plant devices. Through a combination of experiment and computational analysis the authors develop a potential first-principals understanding of turbulent processes in the divertor of their device, where excess heat is handled, paving the way to predictive tokamak solutions for the future.
- Subjects
TOKAMAKS; TURBULENCE; PHYSICS; MAGNETIC confinement; PLASMA confinement; FUSION reactor divertors; PLASMA turbulence
- Publication
Communications Physics, 2022, Vol 5, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2399-3650
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/s42005-022-00906-2