Neutron spectrometry for plasma rotation

G. Gorini, J. Kllne, and L. Ballabio

Citation: Rev. Sci. Instrum. 68, 561 (1997); doi: 10.1063/1.1147654
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Neutron spectrometry for plasma rotation
G. Gorini
Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita` degli Studi di Milano, I-20133 Milan, Italy and Istituto di Fisica del
Plasma, ENEA-CNR-EURATOM Association, I-20133 Milan, Italy
J. Ka

llne and L. Ballabio

Department of Neutron Research, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden
Presented on 14 May 1996
The principles of neutron spectrometry for determination of the toroidal rotation velocity (V
t
) of the
plasma in tokamaks are discussed. Comparison is made with photon spectroscopy which shows that
neutron spectroscopy can be used as a rotation diagnostic and that its applicability depends on the
availability of high neutron uxes and the development of methods to measure the neutron energy
with very high precision. It is found that neutron spectroscopy could be a feasible rotation diagnostic
for burning fusion plasmas to be produced in the next generation tokamaks such as ITER. It is
proposed that V
t
should be derived from the difference spectrum obtained from the simultaneous
measurement of neutrons emitted tangentially in two opposite directions. The problems connected
with the calibration and stability requirements on the neutron spectrometer system for V
t
measurements are illustrated and possible technical solutions discussed. 1997 American
Institute of Physics. S0034-67489763401-2
I. INTRODUCTION
It is the purpose of this article to discuss the principles of
neutron spectrometry for measurements of the toroidal rota-
tion, V
t
, in the core of burning fusion plasmas to be pro-
duced in the next generation tokamaks such as ITER. In
contemporary tokamak experiments, V
t
is determined from
the Doppler shift of characteristic photon emission lines that
in the x-ray region arise from metal ions
1
and in the ultra-
violet UV to visible regions from light impurities mainly
C and O.
2
In the latter case, multichord measurements have
given the radial prole of the toroidal, as well as poloidal,
rotation with a typical time resolution in the range 250 ms
for a 10% accuracy level. Besides observations based on the
spontaneous corona plasma photon emission passive
method, spatially resolved data were obtained by observing
the emission induced by diagnostic neutral beams; with the
latter active method, observation and beam cords can be used
to resolve spatially the plasma region of emission. In this
way, it is possible to measure V
t
in a range from very low
values of 1 km/s for instance in ohmic plasmas
3
to 100
km/s or higher in plasmas with neutral beam injection
4
. In
ITER, one could expect the plasma to rotate at speeds in the
range 1V
t
50 km/s and photon spectroscopy could in
principle be used. The high irradiation from fusion burning
plasmas, however, will pose restrictions on the use of photon
based diagnostic techniques that can be circumvented by the
use of neutron emission based diagnostics. For the high neu-
tron uxes that burning plasmas of ITER can offer we shall
show that neutron spectrometry is a potential plasma rotation
diagnostic.
The proposal to use neutron spectrometry as a V
t
diag-
nostic is inspired by the fact that there is no fundamental
physics difference between the occurrence of Doppler shifts
of neutron and photon spectra. In both cases, the shift can be
expressed as E/EC(V/c) where c is the speed of light
and V is the pre-emission velocity of the dt system for
neutrons also the center-of-mass frame velocity and the ex-
cited atomic state of the impurity ion for photons. The pro-
portionality factor is given by Cpc/E where p is the rela-
tivistic momentum component along the direction of V. This
gives C

1 and C
n
2c/V
n
1 where V
n
is the neutron ve-
locity expressed in the CM frame for instance, C
n
12 for
the reaction dtn so plasma rotation gives rise to a
larger Doppler shift in the characteristic emission energy of
neutrons than for photons. However, the random thermal ion
motion Maxwellian ion velocity distribution specied by the
temperature T
i
broadens the characteristic energy with the
same proportionality factor. Therefore, the two spectra will
appear similar in terms of peak shift relative to peak width.
Hence, the statistical requirement on neutron and photon data
for determining V
t
is the same. With regard to the interpre-
tation of neutron and photon data in terms of V
t
information,
one may note that both are line integrating measurements.
These will be weighted along the plasma chord of observa-
tion by the fusion reactivity normally peaked in the core
and the photon emissivity reecting the electron tempera-
ture and ionic charge state density distributions, respec-
tively, and will therefore constitute a difference; in the latter
case, the more demanding technique of active spectroscopy
diagnostic gives spatially resolved information. The choice
of a V
t
diagnostic for ITER will be determined based on
practical considerations signal strength, background sustain-
ability, and interface compatibility and the quality and scope
of the envisaged information output. It is here that neutron
diagnostics offer an alternative if practical conditions are
contrary the use of conventional techniques. A V
t
diagnostic
on ITER is motivated by the assessed importance of a nite
toroidal rotation for the plasma stability so that V
t
is an es-
sential performance parameter to be monitored and be main-
tained at a certain level.
561 Rev. Sci. Instrum. 68 (1), January 1997 0034-6748/97/68(1)/561/4/$10.00 1997 American Institute of Physics
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II. PRINCIPLES OF MEASUREMENT
The general analytical expression for the energy distri-
bution of the neutron emission from dtn reactions is
I
n
E
n

A
2
th
exp

E
n
E
n0
E
th
E
r

2
2
th
2
assuming the conditions of a thermonuclear fusion plasma
with Maxwellian ion distribution.
5
Here, A is the amplitude
i.e., the number of counts recorded,
th
the standard devia-
tion, and E
n0
14.021 MeV the characteristic neutron emis-
sion energy which applies in the limit T
i
0. At temperatures
T
i
0, the distribution is shifted as expressed by the param-
eter E
th
. Rotation V
t
0 gives rise to a shift expressed by
E
r
. Accurate analytical expressions for
th
and E
th
as a
function of T
i
can be found in Ref. 5. The energy shift due to
rotation is given by E
r
0.54 V
t
with E
r
expressed in
keV and V
t
in km/s; V
t
is here taken as the rotation velocity
component along the direction of observation.
Neutron spectra were calculated with the help of Monte
Carlo simulations with reference to thermonuclear dt re-
actions in a plasma with T
i
20 keV with a rotation of
V
t
50 km/s in addition to the case of no rotation. Three
lines of observation lying in the plasma midplane were con-
sidered, namely, two forming a tangent with the plasma axis
and one being radial Fig. 1. For these conditions, the rota-
tional shift is found to be E
r
27 keV for the two tan-
gential viewing lines Fig. 2 that amounts to 0.2% of the
neutron energy E
n0
. It corresponds to 8% of the thermal
broadening
th
at T
i
20 keV. We also note that the thermal
peak shift at 20 keV amounts to about E
th
51.8 keV. The
precision in the energy measurement is very demanding bet-
ter than 10
3
and is beyond what can be achieved with
conventional techniques for fusion neutron measurements
and a reason why neutron spectrometry has not earlier been
assessed as a potential plasma rotation diagnostic.
Clearly, it would not be easy to determine the absolute
fusion neutron spectrum to the high accuracy needed to de-
termine energy shifts due to V
t
. Therefore, we propose using
the data from two spectrometers that view the same plasma
region from opposing directions, i.e., co- and counter-
tangential sight lines as shown in Fig. 1. From these data one
can form the difference spectrum based on the measured
co/counter pair of spectra and use this to derive the rotation
velocity. This doubles the shift for a given V
t
value and the
precision depends now to a lesser degree on the absolute
values of the system but is transferred to the relative one
relating the two spectrometers to each other. To control and
minimize the instrumental uncertainties is more tractable in
relative than in absolute measurements as we shall illustrate
later. Thus we shall consider the relative shift as an esti-
mator of V
t
which we do by analyzing the difference spec-
trum I

I
n
I
n
where I and I stand for the co- and coun-
terspectra. An example of a difference spectrum is shown in
Fig. 2b. We will rst assess how the accuracy of the deter-
mination of V
t
is affected by the statistical accuracy.
The statistical accuracy of the V
t
measurement, as deter-
mined from elementary statistics, is given by

V
t
V
t

th
E
r

2
1
N
,
which features the usual 1/N dependence typical of counting
measurements. The strong inverse dependence on E
r
im-
plies that accurate measurements of small shifts require very
good statistics. This can be expressed in terms of the number
of counts required for a 10% statistical accuracy as a func-
tion of V
t
Fig. 3. Also shown in Fig. 3 are the counting
statistics that a certain tangential spectrometer system of the
magnetic proton recoil MPR type see below would
achieve on ITER.
6
At the reference fusion power value of
P
f
P
f
max
1.5 GW, we estimate an attainable count rate of
C
n
0.7 MHz assuming standard collimation and broad
plasma neutron emissivity proles. This translates into
FIG. 1. a Energy spectra of thermonuclear dt neutrons emitted by a
plasma with T
i
20 keV and V
t
50 km/s along oppositely viewed tangen-
tial sight lines. b Difference spectrum (I
D
) obtained by subtraction of the
two spectra in a. The total intensity of I
D
is N
D
(2/)
1/2
NE
r
/
th
.
FIG. 2. Sketch of a three arm neutron spectrometer system viewing the
ITER plasma along two tangential T1 and T2 sight lines and one radial R
collimated sight line. The two tangential lines provide V
t
information; the R
line can be used for a consistency check of the analysis.
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C
n
1.4 MHz for a system of two tangential spectrometers
reference case of Fig. 3. Should the emissivity prole be
peaked rather than broad characterized by its width in terms
of the full width at half-maximum FWHM value w, one
would benet from the w
3/2
scaling in the collimated neu-
tron ux assuming xed P
f
.
It is clear from Fig. 3 that V
t
measurements with a time
resolution of t1 s and a statistical error of 10% are
possible to attain but with restrictions on the lower limit for
the V
t
range that can be diagnosed. In practice, V
t
measure-
ments using neutron spectrometry can be performed only
from V
t
5 km/s and upwards assuming that the diagnostic
should provide a dynamic range of at least 5, i.e., the oper-
ating range in terms of plasma power would be from the
maximum down to P
f
0.2P
f
max
.
By use of cross correlation or other analysis techniques,
it may be possible to enhance the statistical accuracy of the
measurement. This would broaden the operating range of the
measurement and will be the object of future work.
The measurement of spectral shifts at the 10
3
level re-
quires that systematic effects be carefully assessed. One can
distinguish between those connected with plasma condition
factors and instrumental ones. The former are intrinsic of the
measurement and do not depend on the choice of instrumen-
tation. The latter are specic to the neutron detection tech-
nique chosen and will be discussed in Sec. III.
A universal limitation of collimated neutron measure-
ments is the line of sight averaging. The measured neutron
spectrum is a superposition of contributions from plasma
volumes with different emissivity weight factor, tempera-
ture needed to account for the shift E
th
(T
i
), and rotation
velocity. Most of the neutrons, however, come from the hot
core of the plasma, so that in rst approximation, the ob-
served shift E
r
in the neutron spectrum is a measure of the
V
t
value in the hot plasma core.
A related problem is the possible interference from po-
loidal plasma rotation, should this be present. This occurs
whenever the viewing line does not lie in the plasma equa-
torial plane, e.g., because of a vertical plasma displacement.
Since plasma volumes with opposite poloidal velocity com-
ponents along the viewing line contribute to the neutron
spectrum, the leading order effect of poloidal rotation would
be a broadening rather than a shift of the neutron spectrum,
having a very limited effect for the determination of V
t
.
One should also consider effects that can arise if the
plasma conditions incorporate nonthermal velocity compo-
nents that are also nonisotropic. These can distort the mea-
surement of V
t
if they give rise to co/counter asymmetric
components in the spectrum. The main mechanism for form-
ing nonthermal features in ITER would be the use of parallel
neutral beam injection NBI, causing neutron production
through interactions between fast ions related to the beam
and thermal bulk ions. These beams are ionized in the
plasma forming a suprathermal slowing down ion population
moving with a net velocity component in the toroidal direc-
tion. This velocity component is dominant for ions of higher
energy, giving large neutron energy shifts E
n
E
n0
. On the
other hand, beam ions tend to become isotropic at low ener-
gies due to angular straggling effects in the slowing down
process. Therefore it may be possible to separate the beam
anisotropy and the V
t
-induced anisotropy by looking at dif-
ferent energy regions of the neutron spectrum. Normally, the
beamplasma component would be a small fraction of the
fusion power in a plasma that burns near ignition conditions.
Moreover, the beamplasma ion reactions would be under-
weighted around the peak of the neutron spectrum. There-
fore, the use of NBI on ITER should not preclude the use of
a neutron based toroidal rotation diagnostic for burning plas-
mas.
III. DISCUSSION
The possibility of measuring V
t
with neutron spectrom-
etry is closely linked to three instrumental aspects, namely,
i the accuracy of the energy calibration, ii the accuracy of
the detailed energy dependence of the response function, and
iii the stability of these factors over time. It is reckoned that
the experimental requirements will be the limiting factors on
the V
t
information obtained.
In order to assess the diagnostic information potential
and the instrumental feasibility of this new concept, initial
studies were performed based on the MPR technique.
7
Mag-
netic spectrometers are standard instruments for precision
measurements in nuclear physics, for instance, spectroscopy
of nuclear states in accelerator beam experiments. These ex-
periments are performed under controlled and repeatable re-
producible conditions as compared to fusion neutron obser-
vations of the emission from the plasma that is a live object
evolving in time. Yet the fact that the neutron energy is mea-
sured passively in the MPR method is also a strength for
plasma observations. It works in such a way that the energy
of the neutron is transferred to a proton being the recoil in
an np collision in a target placed in the neutron beam and
the proton momentum is subsequently analyzed in a magnet
system kept at a xed setting. This is separate from the de-
tector system in which the protons are counted. The proton
count rate reects the neutron count rate that varies in time.
The MPR has a live detection part and a passive energy
determination part and the two are independent. Here we can
make the comparison that momentum dispersion of the MPR
spectrometer plays the same role as the wavelength disper-
sion used in diffraction photon spectrometers. The analogy
FIG. 3. Counting statistics (N) requirements for neutron spectrometry mea-
surements of V
t
in ITER. The solid and dotted lines represent the N value
required for 10% accuracy in V
t
for a plasma ion temperatures of T
i
20 and
T
i
10 keV, respectively. For comparison, counting statistics corresponding
to t1 s accumulation time are also shown horizontal lines for the ref-
erence case w0.6, solid, for a case with one only spectrometer dashed
and for a case with peaked emissivity prole w0.3, dash dotted.
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can be brought one step further by noting that, for instance, a
crystal or grating used in photon spectrometry is stable if the
external conditions are constant for instance, temperature
while the electromagnets of the MPR must be maintained
and hence actively stabilized; in principle, an MPR spec-
trometer with permanent magnets would remove the need for
active stabilization. It should be noted that the MPR is in-
stalled already calibrated and then has to be checked that it is
operating within preset tolerances. With regard to the detec-
tion part, the situation for neutrons and photons is analogous.
The passive energy determination provided by the MPR
technique implies that requirements i and ii above are
inherent to the method. Requirement iii is well satised in
controlled experimental applications but, for neutron obser-
vations on tokamaks, special efforts must be made to handle
effects that can arise from varying and often adverse mea-
surement conditions. Those at ITER would present special
problems due to the expected large magnetic stray elds
0.10.5 T. The stray elds will be shielded passively but
this would not sufce at the level of stability of interest here
10
5
. Here one must resort to active compensation of the
ambient stray eld. It is further suggested that the spectrom-
eters should be designed and operated so that changes in
external measuring conditions can be controlled to rst order.
Any remaining external effects should be handled in such a
way that they would not affect the system of spectrometers
when used for high accuracy difference measurements. In
principle, the external compensation can be done in such a
way that the stray eld will not be inuenced by the presence
of MPR so that the diagnostic is magnetically neutral with
respect to the tokamak. This is an important aspect as there
may be concern that the MPR would perturb the plasma
magnetic eld. Therefore, a stealth technique may be needed
for use of the MPR on ITER and this would also cover the
issue of how to shield the MPR from the inuence of the
stray magnetic eld. We note that these problems are similar
to those of operating NBI injectors which is done success-
fully on present generation tokamaks. The magnetic eld in-
terference mentioned is an example of technological R&D
work needed to sort out questions of the coexistence of the
essential diagnostics and the machine in burning plasma ex-
periments.
The stability/calibration of the MPR spectrometer should
not be confused with its energy resolution. The latter would
normally be set at a value of E/E2.5%, i.e., much less
than the Doppler width of the 14 MeV neutron peak for
reference plasma conditions T
i
20 keV.
With successful control of the stray eld effects, a spec-
trometer system of two tangential spectrometers would allow
relative energy measurements to be performed at the 10
5
level. One would then rely on acquired data for different
plasma conditions and nd the limit of lowest value of E
r0
that appears in the observations. This corresponds to V
t
0.
One would then derive V
t
from the measured E
r
, after
subtraction of the offset E
r0
, leading to a systematic under-
estimate of the true value by no more than the minimum
rotation that the plasma can have in the core for conditions
corresponding to the minum power i.e., neutron ux. In
addition to two tangential lines of sight, a radial line of sight
R, see Fig. 1 can be considered. Since the radial component
of the plasma velocity is negligibly small, E
r
0 in this
case. By taking different combinations of the measurements,
one can check whether a relative shift of the spectra is a
genuine rotation effect or an artifact.
IV. CONCLUSION
The principles of a new plasma toroidal rotation diag-
nostics based on neutron spectrometry were presented and
their application assessed with regard to use for burning
plasma studies on ITER. It is argued that the main limiting
factor in the proposed diagnostic is the magnetic stray elds
which can in principle be controlled to a required level. A
technology study should be performed on methods by which
large magnetic devices close to the tokamak can be stealth
with respect to the machine as well as protected for stray
eld perturbations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was carried out under the EURATOM-NFR
and the EURATOM-ENEA-CNR association agreements,
with nancial support from NFR, CNR, and EURATOM.
1
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H. Weisen et al., Nucl. Fusion 29, 2187 1989.
3
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4
N. Asakura et al., Nucl. Fusion 33, 1165 1993.
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L. Ballabio, G. Gorini, and J. Kallne, Rev. Sci. Instrum., these proceed-
ings.
6
J. Kallne, G. Gorini, and L. Ballabio, Rev. Sci. Instrum., these proceed-
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7
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