Measurement of a 2D fast-ion velocity distribution function by tomographic inversion of fast-ion D-alpha spectra

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first local measurement of a 2D fast-ion velocity distribution function in a plasma using tomographic inversion of FIDA spectra, validated against simulations, advancing diagnostic capabilities in plasma physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to measure the 2D fast-ion velocity distribution function using tomographic inversion of FIDA spectra, validated by simulations in ASDEX Upgrade.

Findings

Measured $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$ agrees well with simulations.

Observed features include lopsided distribution towards negative parallel velocities.

Peaks at neutral beam injection energies are identified in measurements.

Abstract

We present the first measurement of a local fast-ion 2D velocity distribution function $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$. To this end, we heated a plasma in ASDEX Upgrade by neutral beam injection and measured spectra of fast-ion D-alpha (FIDA) light from the plasma center in three views simultaneously. The measured spectra agree very well with synthetic spectra calculated from a TRANSP/NUBEAM simulation. Based on the measured FIDA spectra alone, we infer $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$ by tomographic inversion. Salient features of our measurement of $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$ agree reasonably well with the simulation: the measured as well as the simulated $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$ are lopsided towards negative velocities parallel to the magnetic field, and they have similar shapes. Further, the peaks in the simulation of $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$ at full and half injection energies of the neutral beam also appear in the measurement at similar velocity-space locations. We expect that we can measure spectra in up to seven views simultaneously in the next ASDEX Upgrade campaign which would further improve measurements of $f(v_\parallel, v_\perp)$ by tomographic inversion.