ISSN:
1089-7623
Source:
AIP Digital Archive
Topics:
Physics
,
Electrical Engineering, Measurement and Control Technology
Notes:
The local current density is one of the most important and most difficult parameters to be determined in a thermonuclear plasma. An experimental setup to measure the local electron drift velocity and thus, the current density, by means of tangential Thomson scattering, is presented. The drift velocity of the plasma causes a small wavelength shift of the scattered spectrum, which will be proportional to the local current density if toroidal ion rotation can be neglected. The ratio between the drift velocity and the mean thermal electron velocity is small, typically ∼0.05. A 20-channel high transmission polychromator has been constructed to observe the electron temperature and density within an accuracy of 1% and the drift velocity within 20% at a plasma density ne≈5×1019 m−3 and a laser energy of 7 J. A feasibility test on radial scattering shows that there is good agreement between the accuracy obtained from quantum statistics and observations, respectively. The high transmission and relatively high resolution of the polychromator enable the observation of irregularities in the velocity distribution which should be taken into account in the determination of the drift velocity. Preliminary observations in the tangential direction demonstrate the possibility to determine the drift velocity by a single laser shot. At ne ≈6×1019 m−3 and a laser energy of 3.5 J in the scattering volume a wavelength shift of −2.5±0.5 nm has been recorded corresponding to jφ≈1×107 A/m2.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1140692
