Impurity transport studies on Alcator C-Mod tokamak using Charge Exchange Recombination Spectroscopy

A Charge-Exchange Recombination Spectroscopy (CXRS) diagnostic has been installed on Alcator C-Mod to study the transport of light impurities in plasma. The system provides spatially (1 cm) and temporally (12.5 msec) resolved measurements of the impurity density, temperature and flow velocities of the particular impurity. Two optical arrays: poloidal (19 channels) and toroidal (10 channels), collect the light emitted from excited impurity ion populated by charge exchange process from the Diagnostic Neutral Beam (DNB) particle. The attention of this dissertation is focused on the B4+ (n = 7 → 6) spectral line emitted by B4+ ion formed in the following charge exchange reaction (H0 + B5+ → H+ + B4+*). A complex spectral model was developed to simulate emission. The high magnetic fields of C-Mod result in broad Zeeman patterns which must be taken into account for the interpretation of the line shift and broadening in terms of impurity ion velocity and temperature. After the spectral line fitting and careful identification of the charge exchange component, the calculated Doppler broadening and shifts of the spectral line profile yield information on the ion temperature and rotation. Together with the calculation of the beam density, the absolute calibration of the CXRS optical system provides us with B5+ density measurement capabilities.;One of the main objectives of this work was to use the acquired impurity density, temperature and flow velocity profiles to investigate plasma transport behavior and infer the radial electric field ER from plasma force balance equation. The focus here was placed on the region of the Internal Transport Barrier (ITB) formation 0.35 < rho < 0.8. Radial electric field ER is readily calculated in the region of the ITB foot using measured B5+ profiles. ExB velocity shearing turbulence stabilization are believed to play an important role in the physics of the ITB formation. The computed ER profiles demonstrated the large difference between the H-mode and ITB discharges. Linear gyrokinetic stability analysis (GS2) demonstrated that shearing rate oExB prevails over the linear Ion Temperature Gradient (ITG) growth rates gammamax in the region where ITB forms.