Radiative boundary discharges with impurity injection and the H-L transition in ASDEX Upgrade

The influence of impurity radiation on the and transitions is investigated for highly radiative divertor discharges in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. The transitions between H- and L-mode depend on the net heat flow across the separatrix, , calculated from the heating power and bolometric radiation profiles. For typical radiative boundary conditions in ASDEX Upgrade, the radiation distribution is dominated by line emission in the vacuum-ultraviolet region and peaks near the separatrix. For the case of neon used as seed impurity, about 2/3 of the main chamber radiation is emitted inside, but close to the separatrix. Argon seed results in a higher fraction of core radiation, while the line emission is shifted further outside for nitrogen. The radiation-corrected threshold is not affected by gas puffing and is described by [MW, , T, amu]. The threshold power, which is typically lower by a factor of two without strong deuterium puffing, is increased by heavy gas puffing leading to . In the vicinity of the radiation-induced transition, a general alignment of H and L mode is observed with regard to global energy confinement time and edge density and temperature profiles. The transition itself exhibits a smooth evolution in time. Reduction of target plate power load down to about 10% of the total heating power is easily achieved by edge radiation in the CDH-mode for low conditions. However, this reduction is attributed mainly to radiation from inside the separatrix and is connected to relatively high values of the core . These results emphasize the importance of the development of more closed divertor concepts, allowing for higher divertor radiation levels in connection with lower core .