Influence of the inverse sheath on divertor plasma performance in tokamak edge plasma simulations

Recently, it was shown that strong electron thermionic emission from material walls could result in the formation of an “inverse sheath,” which prevents the flow of cold ions to the wall.^1–3] Such regimes look very favourably from the point of view of plasma–material interactions at the edge of magnetic fusion devices, where the problem of the erosion of plasma-facing components under ion irradiation is one of the key issues for the development of future magnetic fusion reactors. However, it is not clear whether such regimes are compatible with edge plasma parameters and heat removal requirements in fusion reactors. To address the issue of practicality of the “inverse sheath” regime for edge tokamak plasma conditions, we perform a set of numerical simulations with 2D edge plasma transport code UEDGE^4] for a DIII-D-like geometry and magnetic configuration. To describe both “standard” and “inverse sheath” conditions within the framework of the UEDGE code (which does not consider the sheath region per se), at the material surfaces, we apply effective boundary conditions that emulate both “standard” and “inverse sheath” regimes. We demonstrate that, for the same input parameters, spatial distributions of edge plasma parameters corresponding to detached divertor and “inverse sheath” regimes are similar, with only a few minor differences. We discuss the compatibility of “inverse sheath” regimes with core plasma parameters.