High temporal resolution of pedestal dynamics via machine learning on density diagnostics

Journal article, 2024

At the Joint European Torus, the reference diagnostic to measure electron density is Thomson scattering. However, this diagnostic has a low sampling rate, which makes it impractical to study the temporal dynamics of fast processes, such as edge localized modes. In this work, we use machine learning to predict the density profile based on data from another diagnostic, namely reflectometry. By learning to transform reflectometry data into Thomson scattering profiles, the model is able to generate the density profile at a much higher sampling rate than Thomson scattering, and more accurately than reflectometry alone. This enables the study of pedestal dynamics, by analyzing the time evolution of the pedestal height, width, position and gradient. We also discuss the accuracy of the model when applied on experimental campaigns that are different from the one it was trained on.