The impact of fusion-born alpha particles on runaway electron dynamics in ITER disruptions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how fusion-born alpha particles can excite Toroidal Alfven Eigenmodes during ITER disruptions, potentially increasing runaway electron currents, with mitigation strategies affecting mode activity.

Contribution

It introduces kinetic simulations showing alpha-driven TAEs can significantly influence runaway electron dynamics in ITER disruptions, highlighting a new mechanism for current increase.

Findings

Alpha particles can drive strong TAEs during disruptions.

TAEs can cause significant core runaway electron transport.

Mitigation strategies can suppress these modes.

Abstract

In the event of a tokamak disruption in a D-T plasma, fusion-born alpha particles take several milliseconds longer to thermalise than the background. As the damping rates drop drastically following the several orders of magnitudes drop of temperature, Toroidal Alfven Eigenmodes (TAEs) can be driven by alpha particles in the collapsing plasma before the onset of the current quench. We employ kinetic simulations of the alpha particle distribution and show that the TAEs can reach sufficiently strong saturation amplitudes to cause significant core runaway electron transport in unmitigated ITER disruptions. As the eigenmodes do not extend to the plasma edge, this effect leads to an increase of the runaway electron plateau current. Mitigation via massive material injection however changes the Alfven frequency and can lead to mode suppression. A combination of the TAE-caused core runaway electron transport with other perturbation sources could lead to a drop of runaway current in unmitigated disruptions.