Impact of increasing plasma-wall gap on plasma response to RMP fields in ITER

Abstract

The impact of increasing plasma-wall gap on controlling edge-localized modes (ELMs) is numerically evaluated for the ITER 5 MA/2.65 T H-mode scenarios with full tungsten wall, based on the MARS-F computed plasma response to the applied n= 3–5 (n is the toroidal mode number) resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) fields. Three new scenarios, referred to as standard, clearance and outergap, are considered assuming different plasma-wall gap sizes over a range on which vertically stability can be maintained by in-vessel coils in ITER. The latter are shown to have both direct and indirect effects on the plasma response and hence ELM control in ITER. The indirect and also primary influence occurs via change of the equilibrium edge safety factor q₉₅ , which decreases with increasing the plasma-wall gap (at fixed plasma current and toroidal field), leading to a multi-peaking structure in the plasma response as measured by the plasma displacement near the X-point or the edge-localized resonant radial magnetic field perturbation. The direct, albeit secondary effect, is the reduction of local peak amplitudes with increasing the plasma-wall gap thus weakening the RMP field efficiency for ELM control with a given current in the control coils. A slight reduction of the plasma current, from 5 MA to 4.77, 4.92 and 4.65 MA for the standard, clearance and outergap scenarios, respectively, is found to be sufficient to access the q ₉₅ window for the best ELM control with the n= 3 RMP. The n= 4 coil current configuration with the n= 5 sideband is also found favorable for ELM control in ITER, by producing RMP fields with mixed toroidal spectra compared to n = 3.