Hydrocarbons in edge plasmas: a sensitivity analysis

Erosion, transport and also molecular processes such as dissociative excitation, ionization and recombination of hydrocarbons and their ions are relevant for determining the operational window (lifetime, availability) of carbon based divertors. The available database for such molecular processes currently used in fusion plasma applications is analyzed using analytic solutions to the master rate equations. Two disjunct subsets of dominant processes and pathways for fragmentation of these molecules near the target region are identified, one for low and one for high divertor temperatures.