-drift, current, and kinetic effects on divertor plasma profiles during ELMs

Rognlien, T. D.*; Shimada, Michiya

Edge Localized Mode (ELM) heat load on material surfaces is a key issue for burning-plasma tokamak experiments, e.g., ITER or FIRE. When a hot and dense plasma is injected to open field lines near the midplane at an ELM event, there will be a pressure imbalance along the field line, because ion motion is slow. Therefore an electric field will develop along the field line(an extended presheath). Due to the rotational transform, the parallel electric field becomes a poloidal electric field. The field Ep generates an . Therefore, as the injected plasma flows toward the divertor surface to deposit its energy, it experiences a radial shift 1cm. As the target plate is usually inclined to reduce the heat load, a radial shift of 1 cm is appreciable. For ITER, this would correspond to 3 cm on the target. As different portions of the hot ion plasma feel different electric field, the heat flux should also spread radially. A detailed assessment of these cross-field drift effects is given for an ITER-sized device using time-dependent simulations with the 2D UEDGE transport code.