Experimental estimation of beam stopping rate for high energetic neutral beam on LHD

M.Osakabe, Y.Takeiri, M.Goto, S.Murakami1), T.Kato, K.Tsumori, K.Ikeda, K.Tanaka

National Institute for Fusion Science, Toki, Gifu 509-5292, Japan
1) Department of Nuclear Engineering, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

The neutral beam(NB) heating experiments has been studied since 1998 on the Large Helical Device(LHD). The hydrogen neutral beam is tangentially injected at high energy, typically 150-180keV, and the system is based on negative-ion sources[1]. On LHD, the NB port-through power and the shine-though power are directly measured and routinely monitored by using caloriemeter arrays (CMA), which are installed on the counter wall of NB-injector(NBI) ports in the LHD vacuum vessel[2].
In the injection energy range of LHD-NBI, the enhancement of beam stopping cross section was theoretically pointed out by Janev[3] and Boley[4] due to the impact ionization process with impurity ions and the multi-step ionization process. On LHD, discharges with Hydrogen, Helium, Neon or Argon gas-puff are often performed. The experimental evaluation of neutral beam stopping rate due to these ion species will be shown and discussed in the presentation.

References

[1] O.Kaneko, et al., Nucl.Fusion 43 (2003) 692
[2] M.Osakabe, et. al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 72(2001)590
[3] R.K.Janev, et. al., Nucl. Fusion 29(1989)2125
[4] C.D.Boley, et. al., Phys. Rev. Lett.52(1984)534