Divertor detachment is explored on the TCV tokamak in alternative magnetic geometries. Starting from typical TCV single-null shapes, the poloidal flux expansion at the outer strikepoint is varied by a factor of 10 to investigate the X-divertor characteristics, and the total flux expansion is varied by 70% to study the properties of the super-X divertor. The effect of an additional X-point near the target is investigated in X-point target divertors. Detachment of the outer target is studied in these plasmas during Ohmic density ramps and with the ion ∇B drift away from the primary X-point. The detachment threshold, depth of detachment, and the stability of the radiation location are investigated using target measurements from the wall-embedded Langmuir probes and two-dimensional CIII line emissivity profiles across the divertor region, obtained from inverted, toroidally-integrated camera data. It is found that increasing poloidal flux expansion results in a deeper detachment for a given line-averaged density and a reduction in the radiation location sensitivity to core density, while no large effect on the detachment threshold is observed. The total flux expansion, contrary to expectations, does not show a significant influence on any detachment characteristics in these experiments. In X-point target geometries, no evidence is found for a reduced detachment threshold despite a Nuclear Fusion Results from recent detachment experiments in alternative divertor configurations on TCVInternational Atomic Energy Agency a See the author list of 'Overview of progress in European Medium Sized Tokamaks towards an integrated plasma-edge/wall solution' by H. Meyer et al, to be published in the Nuclear Fusion

In a wide variety of natural and laboratory magnetized plasmas, filaments appear as a result of interchange instability. These convective structures substantially enhance transport in the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field. According to filament models, their propagation may follow different regimes depending on the parallel closure of charge conservation. This is of paramount importance in magnetic fusion plasmas, as high collisionality in the scrape-off layer may trigger a regime transition leading to strongly enhanced perpendicular particle fluxes. This work reports for the first time on an experimental verification of this process, linking enhanced transport with a regime transition as predicted by models. Based on these results, a novel scaling for global perpendicular particle transport in reactor relevant tokamaks such as ASDEX-Upgrade and JET is found, leading to important implications for next generation fusion devices.

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(Presented XXXXX; received XXXXX; accepted XXXXX; published online XXXXX) (Dates appearing here are provided by the Editorial Office) The B-dot probe diagnostic suite on the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak has recently been upgraded with a new 125 MHz, 14 Bit resolution digitizer to study ion cyclotron emission (ICE). While classic edge emission from the low field side plasma is often observed, we also measure waves originating from the core with fast fusion protons or beam injected deuterons being possible emission driver. Comparing the measured frequency values with ion cyclotron harmonics present in the plasma places the origin of this emission on the magnetic axis, with the fundamental hydrogen/second deuterium cyclotron harmonic matching the observed values. The actual values range from ~27 MHz at on-axis toroidal field B T = -1.79 T to ~40 MHz at B T = -2.62 T. When the magnetic axis position evolves during this emission, the measured frequency values track the changes in the estimated on-axis cyclotron frequency values. Core ICE is usually a transient event lasting ~100 ms during the neutral beam startup phase. However, in some cases core emission occurs in steady-state plasmas and lasts for longer than 1 s. These observations suggest an attractive possibility of using a non-perturbing ICE-based diagnostic to passively monitor fusion alpha particles at the location of their birth in the plasma core, in deuterium-tritium burning devices such as ITER and DEMO.

A large database of reciprocating probe data from the edge plasma of TCV (Tokamak à Configuration Variable) is used to test the radial velocity scalings of filaments from analytical theory [J. R. Myra, D. A. Russell, and D. A. D'Ippolito, Phys. Plasmas 13, 112502 (2006)]. The measured velocities are mainly scattered between zero and a maximum velocity which varies as a function of size and collisionality in agreement with the analytical scalings. The scatter is consistent with mechanisms that tend to slow the velocity of individual filaments. While the radial velocities were mainly clustered between 0.5 and 2 km/s, a minority reached outward velocities as high as 5km/s or inward velocities as high as-4km/s. Inward moving filaments are only observed in regions of high poloidal velocity shear in discharges with Bx∇B away from the X-point, a new finding. The filaments have diameters clustered between 3 and 11mm, and normalized sizes â clustered between 0.3 and 1.1, such that most filaments populate the resistive-ballooning regime, therefore, most filaments in TCV have radial velocities with little or no dependence on collisionality. Improvements in crosscorrelation techniques and conditional averaging techniques are discussed which reduce the sizes determined for the largest filaments, including those larger than the scrape-off layer (SOL).