Runaway Positrons in Fusion Plasmas
Journal article, 2012

Runaway positrons can be produced in the presence of runaway electron avalanches in magnetized plasmas. In this Letter, we determine the positron distribution, the fraction of runaway positrons, and the parametric dependences of their synchrotron radiation spectrum. We show that the maximum production occurs around γe≃30, where γe is the Lorentz factor of the fast electrons. For an avalanching positron distribution typical of tokamak plasmas, the maximum of the synchrotron radiation spectrum should be around a micron. The radiated power and spectrum shape are sensitive to the plasma parameters. Apart from its intrinsic interest, detection of radiation from positrons could be a diagnostic tool to understand the properties of the medium they propagate through.

Author

Tünde Fülöp

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Nuclear Engineering

Gergely Papp

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Nuclear Engineering

Physical Review Letters

0031-9007 (ISSN) 1079-7114 (eISSN)

Vol. 108 22 225003- 225003

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Energy

Roots

Basic sciences

Subject Categories

Fusion, Plasma and Space Physics

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.225003

More information

Latest update

4/5/2022 6