Lower Hybrid Current Drive on Alcator C-Mod : measurements with an upgraded MSE diagnostic and comparisons to simulation

Lower Hybrid Current Drive (lhcd) is a promising technique to sustain tokamak plasmas and provide control over the current profile—two important capabilities required for the development of tokamak fusion reactors. Upgraded measurement capabilities on the alcator c-mod tokamak create a unique opportunity to study the plasma’s toroidal electric current profile at magnetic fields, plasma densities, and magnetic geometries anticipated in future reactors in stationary discharges dominated by lhcd. The Motional Stark Effect (mse) diagnostic uses polarized light to infer the plasma’s internal current profile. The mse diagnostic deployed on the alcator c-mod tokamak previously experienced unacceptable calibration drift and sensitivity to partially-polarized background light that limited its ability to measure magnetic field pitch-angles. A comprehensive analytic study of the origin of polarization angle errors in mse diagnostics and an experimental study using a robotic calibration system were conducted. Insight from this study guided the fabrication and installation of a first-of-a-kind in-situ calibration system for mse diagnostics—a long sought capability—and the development of thermal isolation schemes for the periscope. An experimental study of the effect of partially polarized background light identified this as a significant source of systematic error. Partial-polarization upon reflection was identified as the mechanism that leads to polarized light in a tokamak. Visible bremsstrahlung, divertor emission, and blackbody emission were identified as the dominant sources of light. A new technique, mse multi-spectral line polarization (mse-mslp), was developed to measure the polarization on a single sightline in multiple wavelengths simultaneously using a high-throughput polarization polychromator. Wavelength-interpolation of the background light polarization utilizing this hardware decreases the error from background subtraction by a factor of 5-10 relative to time-interpolation, drastically improving the measurement quality while eliminating the need for neutral beam pulsing. The method also allows for simultaneous measurement of multiple polarized transitions within the Stark multiplet. The upgraded mse diagnostic was used to measure the magnetic field pitch angle profile in plasmas with some or all of the plasma current driven by lhcd. Measurements were made across a range of single-parameter scans: lhcd power, loop voltage, plasma density, plasma current, and launched n‖ spectrum. The current profile is observed to broaden during lhcd, but consistently has significant on-axis current density, even in fully non-inductive plasmas. The current profile and hard x-ray (hxr) profiles are observed to be most sensitive to plasma current, with higher current yielding broader profiles. The current and hxr profiles as well as global current-drive efficiency are insensitive to changes in n‖ or loop voltage. Numerical simulations by the ray-tracing Fokker-Planck genray/cql3d code reproduce the total measured current in non-inductive conditions but fail to accurately predict the current