Alpha-particle confinement in Infinity Two Fusion Pilot Plant baseline plasma design
In this work, we present a detailed assessment of fusion-born alpha-particle confinement, their wall loads and stability of Alfvén eigenmodes driven by these energetic particles in the Infinity Two Fusion Pilot Plant baseline plasma design, a four-field-period quasi-isodynamic stellarator to operate in deuterium–tritium fusion conditions. Using the Monte Carlo codes, SIMPLE, ASCOT5 and KORC-T, we study the collisionless and collisional dynamics of guiding-centre and full-orbit alpha-particles in the core plasma. We find that core energy losses to the wall are less than 4 %. Our simulations shows that peak power loads on the wall of this configuration are approximately 2.5 MW m - $^2$ and are spatially localised, toroidally and poloidaly, in the vicinity of x-points of the magnetic island chain $n/m = 4/5$ outside the plasma volume. Also, an exploratory analysis using various simplified walls shows that shaping and distance of the wall from the plasma volume can help reduce peak power loads. Our stability assessment of Alfvén eigenmodes using the STELLGAP and FAR3d codes shows the absence of unstable modes driven by alpha-particles in Infinity Two due to the relatively low alpha-particle beta at the envisioned 800 MW operating scenario.
Authors
- J. Varela (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6114-0539)
- L. Singh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7015-4177)
- Bharat Medasani (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2073-4162)
- J. M. Duff (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5308-6694)
- J.M. Canik (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6934-6681)
- Matt Landreman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7233-577X)
- G. Le Bars (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4303-5767)
- K. Särkimäki (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9156-2559)
- Noah Mandell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1446-5397)
- W. Guttenfelder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8181-058X)
- John Morrissey (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4986-776X)
- P. Sinha (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0567-0279)
- J.C. Schmitt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9407-7636)
- A. Bader (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6003-374X)
- Antoine Cerfon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3326-4785)
- L. Carbajal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1725-2787)
- K. Camacho Mata (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0490-0431)
- W. Dorland (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2915-724X)
- C. C. Hegna (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5446-1190)
- W.A. Cooper (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1989-1926)
- A. Snicker (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9604-9666)
- Joona Sissonen
- D. Clark
- K. J. Willis
- D. Huet
- Annelise Malkus
- N. M. Davila (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5061-5677)
Institutions
- Swiss Federal Office of Energy (CH)
- VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (FI)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Plasma Physics
- Published
- 2025-03-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022377825000352
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Magnetic confinement fusion research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.61