Understanding of impurity poloidal distribution in the edge pedestal by modelling

Simulation of an H-mode ASDEX Upgrade shot with boron impurity was done with the B2SOLPS5.2 transport code. Simulation results were compared with the unique experimental data available for the chosen shot: radial density, electron and ion temperature profiles in the equatorial midplanes, radial electric field profile, radial profiles of the parallel velocity of impurities at the low-field side (LFS) and high-field side (HFS), radial density profiles of impurity ions at LHS and HFS. Simulation results reproduce all available experimental data simultaneously. In particular strong poloidal HFS?LFS asymmetry of B5+ ions was predicted in accordance with the experiment. The simulated HFS B5+ density inside the edge transport barrier is twice larger than that at LFS. This is consistent with the experimental observations where even larger impurity density asymmetry was observed. A similar effect was predicted in the simulation done for the MAST H-mode. Here the HFS density of He2+ is predicted to be 4 times larger than that at LHS. Such a large predicted asymmetry is connected with a larger ratio of HFS and LFS magnetic fields which is typical for spherical tokamaks. The HFS/LFS asymmetry was not measured in the experiment, however modelling qualitatively reproduces the observed change of sign of He+parallel velocity to the counter-current direction at LFS. The understanding of the asymmetry is based on neoclassical effects in plasma with strong gradients. It is demonstrated that simulation results obtained with account of sources of ionization, realistic geometry and turbulent transport are consistent with the simplified analytical approach. Difference from the standard neoclassical theory is emphasized.