Dissociative recombination and electron-impact de-excitation in CH photon emission under ITER divertor-relevant plasma conditions
Author | |
Abstract |
For understanding carbon erosion and redeposition in nuclear fusion devices, it is important to understand the transport and chemical break-up of hydrocarbon molecules in edge plasmas, often diagnosed by emission of the CH A(2)Delta-X-2 Pi Gero band around 430 nm. The CH A-level can be excited either by electron-impact (EI) or by dissociative recombination (DR) of hydrocarbon ions. These processes were included in the 3D Monte Carlo impurity transport code ERO. A series of methane injection experiments was performed in the high-density, low-temperature linear plasma generator Pilot-PSI, and simulated emission intensity profiles were benchmarked against these experiments. It was confirmed that excitation by DR dominates at T-e < 1.5 eV. The results indicate that the fraction of DR events that lead to a CH radical in the A-level and consequent photon emission is at least 10%. Additionally, quenching of the excited CH radicals by EI de-excitation was included in the modeling. This quenching is shown to be significant: depending on the electron density, it reduces the effective CH emission by a factor of 1.4 at n(e) = 1.3 x 10(20) m(-3), to 2.8 at n(e) = 9.3 x 10(20) m(-3). Its inclusion significantly improved agreement between experiment and modeling. |
Year of Publication |
2012
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Journal |
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
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Volume |
54
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Issue |
9
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Number of Pages |
095013
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Date Published |
Sep
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Type of Article |
Article
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ISBN Number |
0741-3335
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URL |
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.0736
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DOI |
10.1088/0741-3335/54/9/095013
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PId |
c68f3accf7051fafe52626054fea10de
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Alternate Journal |
Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion
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Label |
OA
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Attachment | |
Journal Article
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