Microwave Imaging Diagnostics for Imaging and Visualization of Magnetohydrodynamic Instabilities in Magnetic Fusion Plasmas

Download or read book Microwave Imaging Diagnostics for Imaging and Visualization of Magnetohydrodynamic Instabilities in Magnetic Fusion Plasmas written by Ming Chen and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Microwave imaging diagnostics in magnetic fusion plasmas consist of both active and passive imaging. Microwave Imaging Reflectometry (MIR) is an active radar-like techniques in which plasma is illuminated with a broad range of microwave frequencies, the electron density and its fluctuation information at cutoff layers are carried by the reflected beams and imaged onto an array of detectors. Electron Cyclotron Emission imaging (ECEI) is a passive radiometric diagnostic system, collecting the radiation emitted by electron gyrating along magnetic field lines so as to provide visualization of the local electron temperature and its fluctuation. To properly interpret the measured signals from these diagnostics and make comparison with theoretical simulations which can advance our understanding towards plasma physics, forward modelling is of significant importance. For the purpose of performing the forward modelling, synthetic diagnostics are being developed, which are aimed at simulating the response of diagnostic systems under actual experimental scenarios and are the key to optimizing system design and drawing quantitative inferences from experimental data. This dissertation focuses on the development and application of synthetic diagnostic for the microwave imaging diagnostic systems. The Edge Harmonic Oscillation (EHO) mode is one of the characteristic modes during the Quiescent High confinement phase in tokamaks that provide an edge transport channel in a moderate manner. Recent theoretical work and extensive experimental observations have suggested that the large rotational E×B shear is the key to destabilize, and thus prevent, the EHO from entering the explosive phase as an Edge Localized Mode (ELM). However, detailed mechanisms concerning this process still remain vague. We employed a synthetic MIR diagnostic to compare the experimental MIR measurement with the linear MHD modeling of the Edge Harmonic Oscillations to draw quantitative interpretation of MIR exclusive observation. The work found that the E×B shear introduced a sheared structure on EHOs in a narrow range near the pedestal top. Furthermore, we performed continuous tracking on how the E×B shear affects the EHO mode structure in order to search for a possible explanation of the EHO’s saturation mechanism under ELM instability. Together with MIR, another edge density fluctuation diagnostic –Beam Emission Spectroscopy is employed to observe the eigenmode structure evolution of EHO in the pedestal region in the radial and poloidal directions, respectively. Our results show that the EHO mode’s radial wavenumber is strongly correlated with the E×B shear rate, while the poloidal wavenumber is less affected by the E×B shear rate. Since the shear is mainly in the poloidal direction, the larger E×B shear tends to elongate the mode more in the poloidal direction which in turn affects the radial wavenumber more. It is also observed that only the density scale length is correlated with the E×B shear rate, implying that the EHOs only modulate the particle transport rather than thermal transport. This modulation could contribute to maintaining the QH-mode under the ELM instability with good thermal confinement. The synthetic ECEI diagnostic has been recently developed and benchmark tested. The synthetic ECEI diagnostic is applied to evaluate the improvement arising from the application of Field Curvature Adjustment (FCA) lenses in the design of the upgraded EAST tokamak ECEI system. The synthetic ECEI diagnostic results show that, with FCA lenses applied, the upgraded ECEI system has significant advantages to focus on high poloidal wavenumber structures with the aberrations from the spherical surfaces corrected and the various artifacts related to the field curvature suppressed.