Numerical simulation of the initial stage of the plasma column formation in JUST-T tokamak

Abstract

In this paper, the stage of plasma column formation in the JUST-T tokamak is considered on the basis of a homogeneous model. The ionization, charge exchange, equilibration of temperatures between electrons and ions, radiation losses, Ohmic heating and additional heating are taken into account. With the use of electron cyclotron resonance heating, the breakdown voltage U _br decreases from 30 to 16 V for P _ECRH=300 kW and p=2 mPa. The additional ion cyclotron resonance heating is less effective; U _br=20 V. The optimal conditions for overcoming the ionization radiation barrier were obtained for the JUST-T tokamak.

Keywords:

• Tokamak
• Breakdown voltage
• Ionization radiation barrier
• Numerical simulation

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Russian Fund of Fundamental Research (RFFR Project 05-02-08137-ofi_e).