Impurity beam-trapping instability in tokamaks

The sensitivity of neutron energy production to the impurity trapping of injected neutral beams is considered. This process is affected by inherent low-Z contamination of the tritium pre-heat plasma, by the species composition of the neutral beam, and by the entrance angle of the beam. The sensitivities of the process to these variables, and to the variation of wall material are compared. One finds that successful use of a low-Z, low-sputtering material can appreciably lengthen the useful pulse length