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In this paper we present the results of the R&D work that has been performed on avoiding electron cyclotron (EC) gas breakdown inside the launcher transmission line (TL) of the ITER collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostic, due to encountering the fundamental EC resonance, which is located inside the port plug vacuum for the baseline ITER magnetic field scenario. If an EC breakdown occurs, this can lead to strong local absorption of the CTS gyrotron beam, as well as arcing inside the ITER vacuum vessel, which must be avoided. Due to the hostile, restrictive, and nuclear environment in ITER, it is not possible to implement the standard method for avoiding EC breakdown - a controlled atmosphere at the EC resonance. Instead, the CTS diagnostic will include a longitudinally-split electrically-biased corrugated waveguide (SBWG) in the launcher transmission line. The SBWG works by applying a transverse DC bias voltage across the two electrically-isolated waveguide halves, causing free electrons to diffuse out of the EC resonant region before they can cause an electron-impact ionisation-avalanche, and thus an EC breakdown. Due to insufficient experimental facilities, the functionality of the SBWG is validated through Monte Carlo electron modelling.

We compute tomographies of 2D fast-ion velocity distribution functions from synthetic collective Thomson scattering (CTS) and fast-ion D α (FIDA) 1D measurements using a new reconstruction prescription. Contradicting conventional wisdom we demonstrate that one single 1D CTS or FIDA view suffices to compute accurate tomographies of arbitrary 2D functions under idealized conditions. Under simulated experimental conditions, single-view tomographies do not resemble the original fast-ion velocity distribution functions but nevertheless show their coarsest features. For CTS or FIDA systems with many simultaneous views on the same measurement volume, the resemblance improves with the number of available views, even if the resolution in each view is varied inversely proportional to the number of views, so that the total number of measurements in all views is the same. With a realistic four-view system, tomographies of a beam ion velocity distribution function at ASDEX Upgrade reproduce the general shape of the function and the location of the maxima at full and half injection energy of the beam ions. By applying our method to real many-view CTS or FIDA measurements, one could determine tomographies of 2D fast-ion velocity distribution functions experimentally.

We present the first deuterium ion temperature and rotation measurements by collective Thomson scattering at ASDEX Upgrade. The results are in general agreement with boron-based charge exchange recombination spectroscopy measurements and consistent with neoclassical simulations for the plasma scenario studied here. This demonstration opens the prospect for direct non-perturbative measurements of the properties of the main ion species in the plasma core with applications in plasma transport and confinement studies.

A collective Thomson scattering (CTS) diagnostic was developed and used to measure the bulk and fast ions originating from 180 keV neutral beams in the Large Helical Device (LHD). Electromagnetic waves from a gyrotron at 77 GHz with 1 MW power output function as both the probe and electron cyclotron heating beam. To clarify the diagnostic applicability of the gyrotron in the 77 GHz frequency band, we investigated the dependence of the probe and receiver beam trajectories in plasmas with high electron densities of (4–5) × 1019 m−3 and low electron densities of (1–2) × 1019 m−3. At high density, a stray radiation component was observed in the CTS spectrum whereas it was negligibly small at low density. The CTS spectrum was measured and analysed after the in situ beam alignment using a beam scan. Qualitatively, the CTS spectrogram shows consistent response to ion temperatures of 1–2 keV for electron densities of (1–2) × 1019 m−3 and electron temperatures of 2–4 keV. The measured CTS spectrum shows an asymmetric shape at the foot of the bulk-ion region during the injection of 180 keV fast ions. This shape is explained by the fast-ion distribution in the velocity space (v‖, v⊥) based on Monte Carlo simulation results. The analysis method of the CTS spectra is used to evaluate the ion temperature and fast-ion velocity distribution from the measured CTS data.

Here we demonstrate a comprehensive comparison of collective Thomson scattering (CTS) measurements with steady-state Monte Carlo simulations performed with the ASCOT and VENUS codes. The measurements were taken at a location on the magnetic axis as well as at an off-axis location, using two projection directions at each location. The simulations agree with the measurements on-axis, but for the off-axis geometries discrepancies are observed for both projection directions. For the near perpendicular projection direction with respect to the magnetic field, the discrepancies between measurement and simulations can be explained by uncertainty in plasma parameters. However, the discrepancies between measurement and simulations for the more parallel projection direction cannot be explained solely by uncertainties in plasma parameters. Here anomalous fast ion transport is a possible explanation for the discrepancy.

Collective Thomson scattering (CTS) has been proposed for measuring the phase space distributions of confined fast ion populations in ITER plasmas. This study determines the impact of fast ions accelerated by ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) on the ability of CTS to diagnose fusion alphas in ITER. Fast ions with large perpendicular velocities, such as the populations investigated here, can be detected with the ‘enabled’ part of the proposed ITER CTS diagnostic. The investigated ICRH scenarios include pure second harmonic tritium heating and 3He minority heating at a frequency of 50 MHz, corresponding to an off-axis resonance. The sensitivities of the results to the 3He concentration (0.1–4%) and the heating power (20–40 MW) are considered. Fusion born alphas dominate the total CTS signal for large Doppler shifts of the scattered radiation. The tritons generate a negligible fraction of the total fast ion CTS signal in any of these heating scenarios. The minority species 3He, however, contributes more than 10% of the fast ion CTS signal at locations close to the resonance layer for 3He concentrations larger than ∼1%. In this particular region in space for resolution of near perpendicular velocities, it may be difficult to draw conclusions about the physics of alpha particles alone by CTS. With this exception, the CTS diagnostic can reveal the physics of the fusion alphas in ITER even under the presence of fast ions due to ICRH.

Auxiliary heating such as neutral beam injection (NBI) and ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) will accelerate ions in ITER up to energies in the MeV range, i.e. energies which are also typical for alpha particles. Fast ions of any of these populations will elevate the collective Thomson scattering (CTS) signal for the proposed CTS diagnostic in ITER. It is of interest to determine the contributions of these fast ion populations to the CTS signal for large Doppler shifts of the scattered radiation since conclusions can mostly be drawn for the dominant contributor. In this study, distribution functions of fast ions generated by NBI and ICRH are calculated for a steady-state ITER burning plasma equilibrium with the ASCOT and PION codes, respectively. The parameters for the auxiliary heating systems correspond to the design currently foreseen for ITER. The geometry of the CTS system for ITER is chosen such that near perpendicular and near parallel velocity components are resolved. In the investigated ICRH scenario, waves at 50MHz resonate with tritium at the second harmonic off-axis on the low field side. Effects of a minority heating scheme with He-3 are also considered. CTS scattering functions for fast deuterons, fast tritons, fast He-3 and the fusion born alphas are presented, revealing that fusion alphas dominate the measurable signal by an order of magnitude or more in the Doppler shift frequency ranges typical for fast ions. Hence the observable CTS signal can mostly be attributed to the alpha population in these frequency ranges. The exceptions are limited regions in space with some non-negligible signal due to beam ions or fast He-3 which give rise to about 30% and 10-20% of the CTS signal, respectively. In turn, the dominance of the alpha contribution implies that the effects of other fast ion contributions will be difficult to observe by CTS.

The evolution of weakly nonlinear electrostatic drift waves in an externally imposed strong homogeneous magnetic field is investigated numerically in three spatial dimensions. The analysis is based on a set of coupled, nonlinear equations, which are solved for an initial condition which is perturbed by a small amplitude incoherent wave–field. The initial evolution is exponential, following the growth of perturbations predicted by linear stability theory. The fluctuations saturate at relatively high amplitudes, by forming a pair of magnetic field aligned vortex–like structures of opposite polarity, i.e. a pair of electrostatic convective cells.