Modeling of the lithium based neutralizer for ITER neutral beam injector

To achieve thermonuclear temperatures necessary to produce fusion reactions in the ITER Tokamak, additional heating systems are required. One of the main method to heat the plasma ions in ITER will be the injection of energetic neutrals (NBI). In the neutral beam injector, negative ions (D ) are electrostatically accelerated to 1 MeV, and then stripped of their extra electron via collisions with a target gas, in a structure known as neutralizer. In the current ITER specification, the target gas is deuterium. It has been recently proposed to use lithium vapor instead of deuterium as target gas in the neutralizer. This would allow to reduce the gas load in the NBI vessel and to improve the neutralization efficiency. A Particle-in-Cell Monte Carlo code has been developed to study the transport of the beams and the plasma formation in the neutralizer. A comparison between Li and D-2 based neutralizers made with this code is presented here, as well as a parametric study on the geometry of the Li based neutralizer. Results demonstrate the feasibility of a Li based neutralizer, and its advantages with respect to the deuterium based one. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.