Radiation power profiles and density limit with a divertor in the W7-AS stellarator

The addition of a divertor into the W7-AS stellarator has allowed access to a high density regime where the radiation profiles reach a steady state. In earlier limiter discharges, the plasma suffered a radiative collapse at high densities. In contrast to limiter experiments, where the impurity confinement time measured by Al laser blow-off increased with increasing line integrated density, in divertor discharges, above a density threshold, the impurity confinement time decreased with increasing line integrated density. The observation that the divertor plasma radiates mainly at the plasma edge rather than the plasma centre is a further indication that changes to the impurity transport coefficients at these high densities are the basis for the achievement of steady state discharges in the divertor configuration of W7-AS. The maximum line integrated density reached with a divertor is compared to that reached with a limiter. The previously derived scaling law for the density limit with a limiter shows that the achieved densities do not exceed those predicted when the higher deposited power is taken into account. In a divertor the radiated power is located at the plasma edge and increasing the density, cooling the plasma edge and radiating sufficient power to cause plasma detachment determines the density limit.