Particle control study towards burning plasma control in JT-60U

Study of particle control, such as control of fuel and impurity densities and plasma responses to fuelling and pumping, has been conducted in JT-60U to expand understanding of burning plasma controllability. Peakedness of density profiles increased with decreasing collisionality, which is consistent with ITG/TEM turbulence transport theory. Other control parameters, such as toroidal rotation, existed, i.e. density peaking with counter rotation. Metal impurity accumulation was observed with peaked density profiles. while light impurity accumulation was not observed. Confinement degraded with supersonic molecular beam injections (SMBI), while it was unchanged with high-field-side shallow pellet injection, indicating flexible control using combined fuelling. 2-D divertor simulations suggested that dynamic plasma-wall interaction slows plasma response to divertor pumping. By using the burning plasma simulation scheme, responses of burning plasmas to fuelling were investigated. It was demonstrated to reduce the simulated fusion gain with SMBI due to confinement degradation and flattening of pressure profile. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.