Feasibility of a fast optical pressure interlock for the ITER neutral beam injectors

The feasibility of using Balmer-α emission for a high-speed pressure diagnostic and beam interlock for the ITER neutral beam heating system is investigated. An interlock is needed to prevent excessive re-ionisation of the neutral beam when rapid excursions of pressure occur in either the electrostatic residual ion dump (ERID), or the neutral beam duct (NBD). The re-ionised fraction of the beam, will be deflected by stray tokamak fields, potentially causing excessive thermal loads on beam line components. Experience from JET indicates that a response time of order 100 μs is required in order to prevent fast pressure excursions. Fast penning gauges have a time response of around 30-50 ms, however, a faster response (around 1 μs) is possible by monitoring the Hα (656.3 nm)/Dα (656.1 nm) emission from collisional excitation of the background gas and neutral beam. Published total cross-sections are used to calculate a signal of 3.5x1013-3.0x1017 photons s-1 m-2 sr-1 for normal conditions. This signal must be distinguished from the background light of the tokamak plasma (line emission and bremsstrahlung). The beam emission is Doppler shifted by up to 21 nm (D operation) and up to 27 nm (H operation) depending on angle of observation and this can be used to help distinguish against background line emission. The distribution of background light along the beam line is calculated with a two-dimensional radiosity code, solving the equilibrium energy balance within the beam line enclosure. The Balmer-α signal and background signal due to bremsstrahlung are compared for a 500-MW reference plasma.