Bolometer tomography at the density limit of the HDH mode in the W7-AS stellarator

The installation of divertor plates in the W7-AS stellarator has allowed attainment of a high energy confinement regime at high density, where the radiation profiles reached steady state. In this regime, the radial profile of the radiated power is hollow. Raising the density to the point where the radiated power approached the input power led to plasma detachment and a decrease in diamagnetic energy. This defines the density limit in a stellarator and a scaling law for this maximum density can be heuristically derived on the basis of power balance considerations. The installation of two bolometer cameras away from the divertor plates and three bolometer cameras in the vicinity of the divertor plates has provided insight into the features of high density operation of a divertor in a stellarator. In the main chamber, tomographic inversion at the density limit has shown that a poloidally asymmetric radiation profile developed as the density limit was approached. In the divertor, radiation in front of the divertor plates occurred while the plasma was attached and this radiation zone vanished at plasma detachment. Steady state discharges of up to 1.5 s have been achieved for neutral beam injection power of up to 2 MW. A precursor to a spontaneous transition out of the high confinement regime has been identified.