Alpha particle driven Alfvenic instabilities in ITER post-disruption plasmas

Journal article, 2021

Fusion-born alpha particles in ITER disruption simulations are investigated as a possible drive of Alfvenic instabilities. The ability of these waves to expel runaway electron (RE) seed particles is explored in the pursuit of a passive, inherent RE mitigation scenario. The spatiotemporal evolution of the alpha particle distribution during the disruption is calculated using the linearized Fokker-Planck solver CODION coupled to a fluid disruption simulation. These simulations are done in the limit of no alpha particle transport during the thermal quench, which can be seen as a most pessimistic situation where there is also no RE seed transport. Under these assumptions, the radial anisotropy of the resulting alpha population provides free energy to drive Alfvenic modes during the quench phase of the disruption. We use the linear gyrokinetic magnetohydrodynamic code LIGKA to calculate the Alfven spectrum and find that the equilibrium is capable of sustaining a wide range of modes. The self-consistent evolution of the mode amplitudes and the alpha distribution is calculated utilizing the wave-particle interaction tool HAGIS. Intermediate mode number (n = 7-15, 22-26) toroidal Alfven eigenmodes are shown to saturate at an amplitude of up to delta B/B approximate to 0.1% in the spatial regimes crucial for RE seed formation. We find that the mode amplitudes are predicted to be sufficiently large to permit the possibility of significant radial transport of REs.