Neutral recirculation - The key to control of divertor operation

Abstract

Interaction of the plasma with neutral gas in the divertor affects virtually all aspects of divertor functionality (power loading of the targets, pumping and fuelling, sustaining the operational conditions of the core plasma). In the course of ITER design development, this interaction has been the subject of intense modelling analysis, supported by experiments on various tokamaks. Neutral gas puffing is found to be the most effective means of divertor control. The results of those studies are summarized and assessed in the paper.