L. Delgado-Aparicio's research while affiliated with Princeton University and other places

Publications (160)

Article
Disruption prediction and avoidance is a critical need for next-step tokamaks, such as ITER. Disruption Event Characterization and Forecasting (DECAF) research fully automates analysis of tokamak data to determine chains of events that lead to disruptions and to forecast their evolution allowing sufficient time for mitigation or complete avoidance...
Article
Full-text available
The Xe ⁴⁴⁺ 2.7203Å, line, which is proposed as one of the diagnostic lines for the X-ray imaging crystal spectrometer on ITER, is observed on EAST tokamak together with its several satellite lines. The observations are made under high electron temperature ( T e ) conditions (core T e > 5keV). Most of the observed xenon lines are identified by compa...
Article
WEST (tungsten environment in steady-state tokamak) is starting operation for the first time with a water-cooled full tungsten divertor, enabling long pulse operation. Heating is provided by radiofrequency systems, including lower hybrid current drive (LHCD). In this context, a compact multi-energy hard x-ray camera has been installed for energy an...
Preprint
Full-text available
Novel x-ray detection technology enabled the first profile measurements of the birth and growth dynamics of runaway electrons (REs) at the edge of tokamaks during quiescent RE studies at the Madison Symmetric Torus. The formation of an off-axis RE seed with linear growth rates has been resolved for low energies, a hollow streaming parameter and lar...
Article
The WEST tokamak has recently been prepared for long pulse operation with a water-cooled full first wall. Heating is provided by radiofrequency systems, including Lower Hybrid Current Drive (LHCD). The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has developed a multi-energy hard x-ray camera for profile measurements at WEST. The camera is based on a new ge...
Article
A multi-energy soft x-ray pinhole camera has been designed, built, and deployed at the Madison Symmetric Torus to aid the study of particle and thermal transport, as well as MHD stability physics. This novel imaging diagnostic technique employs a pixelated x-ray detector in which the lower energy threshold for photon detection can be adjusted indep...
Article
A novel compact multi-energy soft x-ray (ME-SXR) diagnostic based on the PILATUS3 100K x-ray detector has been developed in collaboration between the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and tested on the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) reversed-field pinch. This solid-state photon-counting detector consists of...
Article
The x-ray imaging crystal spectrometer (XICS) is proposed as the principal method of diagnostics for plasma ion temperature and rotation for the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR) for its simplicity in implementation and no reliance on neutral beams. For D–T experiments with the electron temperature as high as 35–40 keV at the core regio...
Article
A compact multi-energy soft x-ray diagnostic is being installed on the W Environment in Steady-state Tokamak (WEST), which was designed and built to test ITER-like tungsten plasma facing components in a long pulse (∼1000 s) scenario. The diagnostic consists of a pinhole camera fielded with the PILATUS3 photon-counting Si-based detector (≲100 kpixel...
Article
A multi-energy hard x-ray pin-hole camera based on the PILATUS3 X 100K-M CdTe detector has been developed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for installation on the Tungsten Environment in Steady State Tokamak. This camera will be employed to study thermal plasma features such as electron temperature as well as non-thermal effects such as f...
Article
Full-text available
X-ray spectra in the wavelength range from 2.70 to 2.76 Å from xenon (Z = 54) in near neon-like charge states have been observed in Alcator C-Mod tokamak plasmas. The 3D (2p⁶ − (2p⁵)3/23d5/2, 2720.4 mÅ) and 3F (2p⁶ − (2p⁵)1/23s1/2, 2729.0 mÅ) transitions from neon-like Xe⁴⁴⁺ have been identified, along with nearby Na-, Mg- and Al-like satellites. T...
Article
Large, spontaneous m/n = 1/1 helical cores are predicted in tokamaks with extended regions of low- or reversed-magnetic shear profiles in a region within the q = 1 surface and an onset condition determined by constant (dp/dρ)/Bt2 along the threshold. These 3D modes occurred frequently in Alcator C-Mod during ramp-up when slow current penetration re...
Article
An in situ wavelength calibration system for the X-ray Imaging Crystal Spectrometer (XICS) on W7-X has been developed to provide routine calibration between plasma shots. XICS is able to determine plasma flow profiles by measuring the Doppler shift of x-ray line emission from highly charged impurity species. A novel design is described that uses an...
Article
Full-text available
The here-described spectrometer was developed for the extended x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy of high-density plasmas at the National Ignition Facility. It employs as the Bragg reflecting element a new type of toroidally bent crystal with a constant and very large major radius R and a much smaller, locally varying, minor radius r. The...
Article
A multi-energy soft x-ray pin-hole camera based on the PILATUS3 100 K x-ray detector has recently been installed on the Madison Symmetric Torus. This photon-counting detector consists of a two-dimensional array of ∼100 000 pixels for which the photon lower-threshold cutoff energy E c can be independently set for each pixel. This capability allows t...
Article
Full-text available
Newly developed large-area pixelated two-dimensional detector and two-crystal assemblies were deployed for the first time on tokamaks to enable time-resolved Bragg-diffracted x-ray imaging with good framing rate and water-cooling capabilities for in-vacuum long-pulse operations. High-quality helium-like (He-like) and hydrogen-like (H-like) argon sp...
Article
A new tool has been developed to calculate the spectral, spatial, and temporal responses of multi-energy soft x-ray (ME-SXR) pinhole cameras for arbitrary plasma densities (ne,D), temperature (Te), and impurity densities (nZ). ME-SXR imaging provides a unique opportunity for obtaining important plasma properties (e.g., Te, nZ, and Zeff) by measurin...
Article
Full-text available
A two-crystal X-ray spectrometer system has been implemented in the EAST tokamak to simultaneously diagnose high- and low-temperature plasmas using He- and H-like argon spectra. But for future fusion devices like ITER and Chinese Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR), argon ions become fully stripped in the core and the intensity of the H-like li...
Article
A multi-energy soft x-ray pinhole camera has been designed and built for the Madison Symmetric Torus reversed field pinch to aid the study of particle and thermal-transport, as well as MHD stability physics. This novel imaging diagnostic technique combines the best features from both pulse-height-analysis and multi-foil methods employing a PILATUS3...
Article
Fishbone-type oscillations with poloidal and toroidal mode numbers m = 1, n = 1 have been observed during lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) in the Alcator C-Mod tokamak. At relatively high plasma density and collisionality, the driving mechanism appears to be the nonresonant destabilization of an m/n = 1/1 MHD resistive internal kink mode by the pr...
Article
Full-text available
X-ray spectra of n = 3-1 transitions in He-like ions (and satellites) from calcium, argon and chlorine have been measured in the core of Alcator C-Mod tokamak plasmas using high wavelength resolution x-ray spectrometer systems. The intensity ratio of the intercombination line y 3 (1s3p ³P1-1s2 1S0) to the resonance line w 3 (1s3p ¹P1-1s2 1S0) is fo...
Article
The results from the investigation of neoclassical core transport and the role of the radial electric field profile (Er) in the first operational phase of the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator are presented. In stellarator plasmas, the details of the Er profile are expected to have a strong effect on both the particle and heat fluxes. Investigatio...
Article
Large, spontaneous m/n = 1/1 helical cores are shown to be expected in tokamaks such as ITER with extended regions of low- or reversed- magnetic shear profiles and q near 1 in the core. The threshold for this spontaneous symmetry breaking is determined using VMEC scans, beginning with reconstructed 3D equilibria from DIII-D and Alcator C-Mod based...
Article
The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has undergone a major upgrade, and the NSTX Upgrade (NSTX-U) Project was completed in the summer of 2015. NSTX-U first plasma was subsequently achieved, diagnostic and control systems have been commissioned, the H-mode accessed, magnetic error fields identified and mitigated, and the first physics rese...
Article
A high resolution (E/ΔE = 1200-1800) Bragg crystal x-ray spectrometer is being developed to measure plasma parameters in National Ignition Facility experiments. The instrument will be a diagnostic instrument manipulator positioned cassette designed mainly to infer electron density in compressed capsules from Stark broadening of the helium-β (1s²-1s...
Article
A two-crystal assembly was deployed on the tangential X-ray crystal spectrometer to measure both helium-like and hydrogen-like spectra on EAST. High-quality helium-like and hydrogen-like spectra were observed simultaneously for the first time on one detector for a wide range of plasma parameters. Profiles of line-integrated core ion temperatures in...
Article
The infrared imaging video bolometer (IRVB) measures plasma radiated power images using a thin metal foil. Two different designs with a tangential view of NSTX-U are made assuming a 640 × 480 (1280 × 1024) pixel, 30 (105) fps, 50 (20) mK, IR camera imaging the 9 cm × 9 cm × 2 μm Pt foil. The foil is divided into 40 × 40 (64 × 64) IRVB channels. Thi...
Article
A high spatial resolution of a few μm is often required for probing small-scale high-energy-density plasmas using high resolution x-ray imaging spectroscopy. This resolution can be achieved by adjusting system magnification to overcome the inherent limitation of the detector pixel size. Laboratory experiments on investigating the relation between s...
Article
A compact multi-energy soft x-ray camera has been developed for time, energy and space-resolved measurements of the soft-x-ray emissivity in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. Multi-energy soft x-ray imaging provides a unique opportunity for measuring, simultaneously, a variety of important plasma properties (Te, nZ, ΔZeff, and n e,fast). The el...
Article
We have proposed, designed and built a dual-channel x-ray imaging crystal spectrometer (XICS) for spectrally- and spatially-resolved x-ray Thomson scattering (XRTS) measurements in the Matter in Extreme Conditions (MEC) end station at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). This spectrometer employs two spherically-bent germanium (Ge) 220 crystals,...
Article
The Greenwald density limit, found in all tokamak experiments, is reproduced for the first time using a phenomenologically correct model with parameters in the range of experiments. A simple model of equilibrium evolution and local power balance inside the island has been implemented to calculate the radiation-driven thermo-resistive tearing mode g...
Article
This work discusses sources of uncertainty in the validation of lower hybrid wave current drive simulations against experiments, by evolving self-consistently the magnetic equilibrium and the heating and current drive profiles, calculated with a combined toroidal ray tracing code and 3D Fokker-Planck solver. The simulations indicate a complex inter...
Article
The InfraRed Video Bolometer (IRVB) is a powerful tool to measure radiated power in magnetically confined plasmas due to its ability to obtain 2D images of plasma emission using a technique that is compatible with the fusion nuclear environment. A prototype IRVB has been developed and installed on NSTX-U to view the lower divertor. The IRVB is a pi...
Article
The physical mechanism behind the tokamak density limit scaling is described in terms of a non-linear theory of tearing mode growth in cylindrical geometry coupled to a model for thermal transport in the island. Important new physics features of the model include: (1) island asymmetry due to finite island width in cylindrical geometry, (2) a model...
Article
An analysis of the radial electric field and heat transport, both for ions and electrons, is presented for a high-T-e electron cyclotron heated (ECH) discharge on the large helical device (LHD). Transport analysis is done using the task3d transport suite utilizing experimentally measured profiles for both ions and electrons. Ion temperature and per...
Article
Changes in the core toroidal rotation profiles following injection of lower hybrid (LH) waves have been documented in Alcator C-Mod plasmas. Shot by shot scans of LH input power have been performed at fixed magnetic field and electron density for several plasma currents. For sawtoothing target plasmas, if the input power is low enough that the cent...
Article
Full-text available
The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) is currently being upgraded to operate at twice the toroidal field and plasma current (up to 1 T and 2 MA), with a second, more tangentially aimed neutral beam (NB) for current and rotation control, allowing for pulse lengths up to 5 s. Recent NSTX physics analyses have addressed topics that will allow...
Article
This paper presents an overview of recent highlights from research on Alcator C-Mod. Significant progress has been made across all research areas over the last two years, with particular emphasis on divertor physics and power handling, plasma-material interaction studies, edge localized mode-suppressed pedestal dynamics, core transport and turbulen...
Article
Full-text available
X-ray spectra of H- and He-like ions (and satellites) from argon, calcium and chlorine have been measured in Alcator C-Mod tokamak plasmas using a high wavelength resolution imaging x-ray spectrometer system. For H-like charge states, the Lyα doublet intensity ratio is found to be slightly greater than 1/2 due to interaction with the 2S1/2 fine str...
Article
The behavior of magnetic islands with 3D electron temperature and the corresponding 3D resistivity effects on growth are examined for islands with near-zero net heating in the island interior. We refer to the resulting class of non-linearities as thermo-resistive effects. In particular, the effects of varying impurity mix on the previously proposed...
Article
Peaked density profiles in low-collisionality AUG and JET H-mode plasmas are probably caused by a turbulently driven particle pinch, and Alcator C-Mod experiments confirmed that collisionality is a critical parameter. Density peaking in reactors could produce a number of important effects, some beneficial, such as enhanced fusion power and transpor...
Article
New experimental observations are reported on the structure and dynamics of short-lived periodic (1, 1) “fishbone”-like oscillations that appear during radio frequency heating and current-drive experiments in tokamak plasmas. For the first time, measurements can directly relate changes in the high energy electrons to the mode onset, saturation, and...
Article
Performance predictions for future fusion devices rely on an accurate model of the pedestal structure. The candidate for predictive pedestal structure is EPED, and it is imperative to test the underlying hypotheses to further gain confidence for ITER projections. Here, we present experimental work testing one of the EPED hypotheses, namely the exis...
Article
Core impurity transport has been investigated for a variety of confinement regimes in Alcator C-Mod plasmas from x-ray emission following injection of medium and high Z materials. In ohmic L-mode discharges, impurity transport is anomalous (D eff ≫ D nc) and changes very little across the LOC/SOC boundary. In ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICR...
Article
This paper describes a new type of x-ray crystal spectrometer, which can be used in combination with gated x-ray detectors to obtain spectra from laser-produced plasmas with a high (sub-ns) time resolution. The spectrometer consists of a convex, spherically bent crystal, which images individual spectral lines as perfectly straight lines across mult...
Article
The radiated-power-density diagnostic on the equatorial midplane for the NSTX-U tokamak will be upgraded to measure the radial structure of the photon emissivity profile with an improved radial resolution. This diagnostic will enhance the characterization and studies of power balance, impurity transport, and MHD. The layout and response expected of...
Article
A new set of radiated-power-density diagnostics for the National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) tokamak have been designed to measure the two-dimensional poloidal structure of the total photon emissivity profile in order to perform power balance, impurity transport, and magnetohydrodynamic studies. Multiple AXUV-diode based pinhole cam...
Article
The implementation of advanced electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI) systems on tokamak experiments has revolutionized the diagnosis of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) activities and improved our understanding of instabilities, which lead to disruptions. It is therefore desirable to have an ECEI system on the ITER tokamak. However, the large size of...
Article
Accurate tomographic inversion is important for diagnostic systems on stellarators and tokamaks which rely on measurements of line integrated emission spectra. A tomographic inversion technique based on spline optimization with enforcement of constraints is described that can produce unique and physically relevant inversions even in situations with...
Article
Full-text available
A two-dimensional stigmatic x-ray imaging scheme, consisting of two spherically bent crystals, one concave and one convex, was recently proposed [M. Bitter et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 83, 10E527 (2012)]. The Bragg angles and the radii of curvature of the two crystals of this imaging scheme are matched to eliminate the astigmatism and to satisfy the...
Conference Paper
One dimensional spatially resolved high resolution x-ray spectroscopy with spherically bent crystals and 2D pixelated detectors is an established technique on magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) experiments world wide for Doppler measurements of spatial profiles of plasma ion temperature and flow velocity. This technique is being further developed fo...
Article
Non-local heat transport experiments were performed in Alcator C-Mod ohmic L-mode plasmas by inducing edge cooling with laser blow-off impurity (CaF2) injection. The non-local effect, a cooling of the edge electron temperature with a rapid rise of the central electron temperature, which contradicts the assumption of 'local' transport, was observed...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Upgrade of the imaging X-ray crystal spectrometers continues in order to fulfill the high-performance diagnostics requirements on EAST. For the tangential spectrometer, a new large pixelated two-dimensional detector was deployed on tokamaks for time-resolved X-ray imaging. This vacuum-compatible detector has an area of 83.8 × 325.3 mm2, a framing r...
Article
Full-text available
X-ray spectra of n = 2 to 1 transitions in hydrogen-like Ca19 +, helium-like Ca18 + and nearby satellites have been obtained from Alcator C-Mod tokamak plasmas using a spatially imaging high resolution x-ray spectrometer system. For Ca19 +, the intensity ratio of Ly?2 (1s 1S1/2?2p 2P1/2) to Ly?1 (1s 1S1/2?2p 2P3/2) was found to be ~0.531 ? 0.005 ov...
Article
With fusion device performance hinging on the edge pedestal pressure, it is imperative to experimentally understand the physical mechanism dictating the pedestal characteristics and to validate and improve pedestal predictive models. This Letter reports direct evidence of density and magnetic fluctuations showing the stiff onset of an edge instabil...
Article
X-ray imaging crystal spectrometers with high spectral and spatial resolution are currently being used on magnetically confined fusion devices to infer the time history profiles of ion and electron temperatures as well as plasma flow velocities. The absolute measurement of flow velocities is important for optimizing various discharge scenarios and...
Article
Full-text available
Research on the National Spherical Torus Experiment, NSTX, targets physics understanding needed for extrapolation to a steady-state ST Fusion Nuclear Science Facility, pilot plant, or DEMO. The unique ST operational space is leveraged to test physics theories for next-step tokamak operation, including ITER. Present research also examines implicatio...
Article
Recent research on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak has focused on a range of scientific issues with particular emphasis on ITER needs and on detailed comparisons between experimental measurements and predictive models. Research on ICRF (ion cyclotron range of frequencies) heating emphasized the origins and mitigation of metallic impurities while work on...
Article
Application of lower hybrid (LH) current drive in tokamak plasmas can induce both co- and countercurrent directed changes in toroidal rotation, depending on the core q profile. For discharges with q_{0}<1, rotation increments in the countercurrent direction are observed. If the LH-driven current is sufficient to suppress sawteeth and increase q_{0}...
Article
Application of lower hybrid range of frequencies (LHRF) waves can induce both co- and counter-current directed changes in toroidal rotation in Alcator C-Mod plasmas, depending on the target plasma current, electron density, confinement regime and magnetic shear. For ohmic L-mode discharges with good core LH wave absorption, and significant current...
Article
In previous work (Gates and Delgado-Aparicio 2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 165004), the onset criterion for radiation-driven islands (Rebut et al 1985 Proc. 10th Int. Conf. on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research 1984 (London, UK, 1984) vol 2 (Vienna: IAEA) p 197) in combination with a simple cylindrical model of tokamak current channe...
Article
Long-lived (1, 1) 'snake' modes were discovered nearly three decades ago, but basic questions regarding their formation, stability, and superb particle confinement—shown by surviving tens to hundreds of sawtooth cycles—have remained unanswered. High-resolution spectroscopic imaging diagnostics permit studies of heavy-impurity-ion snakes with unprec...
Article
Full-text available
We propose a crystal configuration using a single Laue spherical crystal for imaging applications. A crystal in Laue geometry set to focus a divergent beam in the meridional (diffraction) plane, but does not focus in the sagittal plane. A transmission object placed in the beam is imaged with different horizontal and vertical aspect ratio, but it is...
Article
Full-text available
New observations of the formation and dynamics of long-lived impurity-induced helical "snake" modes in tokamak plasmas have recently been carried out on Alcator C-Mod. The snakes form as an asymmetry in the impurity ion density that undergoes a seamless transition from a small helically displaced density to a large crescent-shaped helical structure...
Article
Full-text available
Several seemingly unrelated effects in Alcator C-Mod ohmic L-mode plasmas are shown to be closely connected: non-local heat transport, core toroidal rotation reversals, energy confinement saturation and up/down impurity density asymmetries. These phenomena all abruptly transform at a critical value of the collisionality. At low densities in the lin...
Article
Full-text available
This research describes advancements in the spectral analysis and error propagation techniques associated with x-ray imaging crystal spectroscopy (XICS) that have enabled this diagnostic to be used to accurately constrain particle, momentum, and heat transport studies in a tokamak for the first time. Doppler tomography techniques have been extended...
Article
Full-text available
A new energy resolving x-ray pinhole camera has been recently installed on Alcator C-Mod. This diagnostic is capable of 1D or 2D imaging with a spatial resolution of ≈1 cm, an energy resolution of ≈1 keV in the range of 3.5-15 keV and a maximum time resolution of 5 ms. A novel use of a Pilatus 2 hybrid-pixel x-ray detector [P. Kraft et al., J. Sync...
Article
Full-text available
The configurations of pixilated detectors for x-ray imaging crystal spectrometers and x-ray pinhole cameras can be optimized based on the Shannon-Nyquist sampling and interpolation theory, since the observed spectra are typically oversampled. The degree of oversampling is quantified and alternative uses for redundant pixels are proposed.
Article
A suite of novel high-resolution spectroscopic imaging diagnostics has facilitated the identification and localization of molybdenum impurities as the main species during the formation and lifetime of m = 1 impurity-induced snake-modes on Alcator C-Mod. Such measurements made it possible to infer, for the first time, the perturbed radiated power de...
Article
High resolution (λ/Δλ ~10,000) 1D imaging x-ray spectroscopy using a spherically bent crystal and a 2D hybrid pixelarray detector (PAD) is used world wide for Doppler measurements of ion-temperature (Ti) and plasma flow-velocityprofiles in magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) plasmas. Meter sized plasmas are diagnosed with cm spatial resolution and 10...
Article
This paper describes a new x-ray scheme for stigmatic imaging. The scheme consists of one convex spherically bent crystal and one concave spherically bent crystal. The radii of curvature and Bragg reflecting lattice planes of the two crystals are properly matched to eliminate the astigmatism, so that the conditions for stigmatic imaging are met for...
Article
In nonlinear GYRO simulations of C-Mod plasmas, a turbulently driven pinch produces modest density peaking of all species. The ratio of density at r/a=0.44 and 0.74 is 1.2 for the majority and minority D & H (and electrons), and increases with impurity Z: 1.1 for helium, 1.15 for boron, 1.29 for neon, 1.36 for argon, 1.47 for molybdenum. Density pe...
Article
Thermal transport is studied by laser blow-off impurity (CaF2) injection. The non-local effect, a cooling of the edge electron temperature with a rapid rise of the central electron temperature, which contradicts the ``local'' assumption of transport, was observed in low density linear Ohmic confinement (LOC) regime plasmas. Simulation shows this ph...
Article
The empirical scaling law of the density limit in tokamaks and reversed-field pinches has long been known and is a surprisingly robust experimental result [1]. Whereas the form of the empirical scaling evolved over decades of experimental activities, the physics mechanism for the onset of the density limit has remained elusive. A novel theoretical...
Article
High resolution (λ/δλ ˜10,000) 1D spatially resolved x-ray spectroscopy using a spherically bent crystal and a 2D hybrid pixel array detector is used world wide for Doppler measurements of ion-temperature and plasma flow-velocity profiles in magnetic confinement fusion plasmas. Meter sized plasmas are diagnosed with cm spatial resolution and 10 ms...
Article
Measurements of the ion temperature and plasma flow velocities in the ITER core must be made with spatial and temporal resolutions of 10 cm and 10 ms, respectively, over the range r/a=0-0.85. These requirements can be met by Doppler measurements of the spectral lines of neon- or helium-like, ion of tungsten, iron, and krypton with high-resolution x...
Article
Alcator C-Mod is equipped with a multi-pulse laser blow-off impurity injector, capable of injecting a small amount of a given impurity into the plasma as frequently as once every 0.1s. This system is used as an actuator for studies of impurity transport, where calcium is often used as it is non-intrinsic and non-recycling. To observe the effect of...
Article
First results of ion and electron temperature profile measurements from the x-ray imaging crystal spectrometer (XICS) diagnostic on the Large Helical Device (LHD) are presented. This diagnostic system has been operational since the beginning of the 2011 LHD experimental campaign and is the first application of the XICS diagnostic technique to helic...