Evaluation of soft x-ray average recombination coefficient and average charge for metallic impurities in beam-heated plasmas

The soft x-ray continuum radiation in TFTR low density neutral beam discharges can be much lower than its theoretical value obtained by assuming a corona equilibrium. This reduced continuum radiation is caused by an ionization equilibrium shift toward lower states, which strongly changes the value of the average recombination coefficient of metallic impurities anti γ, even for only slight changes in the average charge, anti Z. The primary agent for this shift is the charge exchange between the highly ionized impurity ions and the neutral hydrogen, rather than impurity transport, because the central density of the neutral hydrogen is strongly enhanced at lower plasma densities with intense beam injection. In the extreme case of low density, high neutral beam power TFTR operation (energetic ion mode) the reduction in anti γ can be as much as one-half to two-thirds. We calculate the parametric dependence of anti γ and anti Z for Ti, Cr, Fe, and Ni impurities on neutral density (equivalent to beam power), electron temperature, and electron density. These values are obtained by using either a one-dimensional impurity transport code (MIST) or a zero-dimensional code with a finite particle confinement time. As an example, we show the variation of anti γ and anti Z in different TFTR discharges