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Register a new userTheory of Thomson scattering in inhomogeneous media
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Added by
Pawel Marek Kozlowski
Publication date
2016
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Thomson scattering of laser light is one of the most fundamental diagnostics of plasma density, temperature and magnetic fields. It relies on the assumption that the properties in the probed volume are homogeneous and constant during the probing time. On the other hand, laboratory plasmas are seldom uniform and homogeneous on the temporal and spatial dimensions over which data is collected. This is partic- ularly true for laser-produced high-energy-density matter, which often exhibits steep gradients in temperature, density and pressure, on a scale determined by the laser focus. Here, we discuss the modification of the cross section for Thomson scattering in fully-ionized media exhibiting steep spatial inhomogeneities and/or fast temporal fluctuations. We show that the predicted Thomson scattering spectra are greatly altered compared to the uniform case, and may even lead to violations of detailed balance. Therefore, careful interpretation of the spectra is necessary for spatially or temporally inhomogeneous systems.
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The average-atom model is applied to study Thomson scattering of x-rays from warm-dense matter with emphasis on scattering by bound electrons. Parameters needed to evaluate the dynamic structure function (chemical potential, average ionic charge, free electron density, bound and continuum wave-functions and occupation numbers) are obtained from the average-atom model. The resulting analysis provides a relatively simple diagnostic for use in connection with x-ray scattering measurements. Applications are given to dense hydrogen, beryllium, aluminum and titanium plasmas. In the case of titanium, bound states are predicted to modify the spectrum significantly.
Scattering phenomena between charged particles and highly excited Rydberg atoms are of critical importance in many processes in plasma physics and astrophysics. While a Maxwell-Boltzmann (MB) energy distribution for the charged particles is often assumed for calculations of collisional rate coefficients, in this contribution we relax this assumption and use two different energy distributions, a bimodal MB distribution and a $kappa$-distribution. Both variants share a high-energy tails occurring with higher probability than the corresponding MB distribution. The high energy tail may significantly affect rate coefficients for various processes. We focus the analysis to specific situations by showing the dependence of the rate coefficients on the principal quantum number of hydrogen atoms in n-changing collisions with electrons in the excitation and ionization channels and in a temperature range relevant to the divertor region of a tokamak device. We finally discuss the implications for diagnostics of laboratory plasmas.
We calculate the Thomson scattering cross section in a non-relativistic, magnetized, high density plasma -- in a regime where collective excitations can be described by magnetohydrodynamics. We show that, in addition to cyclotron resonances and an elastic peak, the cross section exhibits two pairs of peaks associated with slow and fast magnetosonic waves; by contrast, the cross section arising in pure hydrodynamics possesses just a single pair of Brillouin peaks. Both the position and the width of these magnetosonic-wave peaks depend on the ambient magnetic field and temperature, as well as transport and thermodynamic coefficients, and so can therefore serve as a diagnostic tool for plasma properties that are otherwise challenging to measure.
Understanding the behaviour of the confined fast ions is important in both current and future fusion experiments. These ions play a key role in heating the plasma and will be crucial for achieving conditions for burning plasma in next-step fusion devices. Microwave-based Collective Thomson Scattering (CTS) is well suited for reactor conditions and offers such an opportunity by providing measurements of the confined fast-ion distribution function resolved in space, time and 1D velocity space. We currently operate a CTS system at ASDEX Upgrade using a gyrotron which generates probing radiation at 105 GHz. A new setup using two independent receiver systems has enabled improved subtraction of the background signal, and hence the first accurate characterization of fast-ion properties. Here we review this new dual-receiver CTS setup and present results on fast-ion measurements based on the improved background characterization. These results have been obtained both with and without NBI heating, and with the measurement volume located close to the centre of the plasma. The measurements agree quantitatively with predictions of numerical simulations. Hence, CTS studies of fast-ion dynamics at ASDEX Upgrade are now feasible. The new background subtraction technique could be important for the design of CTS systems in other fusion experiments.
The primary purpose of the collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostic at ITER is to measure the properties of fast-ion populations, in particular those of fusion-born $alpha$-particles. Based on the present design of the diagnostic, we compute and fit synthetic CTS spectra for the ITER baseline plasma scenario, including the effects of noise, refraction, multiple fast-ion populations, and uncertainties on nuisance parameters. As part of this, we developed a model for CTS that incorporates spatial effects of frequency-dependent refraction. While such effects will distort the measured ITER CTS spectra, we demonstrate that the true $alpha$-particle densities can nevertheless be recovered to within ~10% from noisy synthetic spectra, using existing fitting methods that do not take these spatial effects into account. Under realistic operating conditions, we thus find the predicted performance of the ITER CTS system to be consistent with the ITER measurement requirements of a 20% accuracy on inferred $alpha$-particle density profiles at 100 ms time resolution.
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