Multipoint Spectroscopy Measurement of Spherical Tokamak Heating by Magnetic Reconnection in UTST

Abstract

The temporal evolution of ion temperature and flow was observed to investigate the heating effect of plasma merging in the UTST device by using a multipoint Doppler spectroscopy measurement system. The bulk plasma ion temperature measured by a carbon impurity line was about 15-20 eV after plasma merging. In addition, anomalous broadening of the carbon line width was observed only in the early phase of plasma merging. Since carbon impurity emission comes mainly from the X-point and the vicinity of the center stack, the broad spectrum is considered to consist of a radially bi-directional outflow component from the X-point and a stationary component near the center stack. The outflow velocity estimated from the spectroscopy was about 24 km/s, which agreed well with both an Alfvén velocity of 22 km/s and a velocity of the reconnected field line motion of 35 km/s.