Computational studies of giant edge islands and unpaired X-points in HSX and W7-X by manipulating coil currents

Abstract

We present magnetic configurations in the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX) and Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), in which the edge magnetic structure is dominated by island chains which are spatially larger than the previously reported configurations. These ``giant" island chains (with rotational transform $ι=4/3$ or $4/4$ for HSX and $ι=5/6$, $5/5$ or $5/4$ for W7-X) are obtained by reducing the coil current in main coil 6 for HSX and non-planar coil 5 for W7-X (i.e. the coil nearest the up-down symmetric cross-section $ϕ=36^\circ$ for W7-X and $ϕ=45^\circ$ for HSX); this appears a sufficient (but not necessary) condition for giant islands. The giant islands create relatively straight X-point legs which transport plasma to the plasma-facing components (PFCs). In the most extreme cases, the island O-points leave the domain of the field line map and the divertor legs of the remaining ``unpaired" X-points do not close around the island. We use the anisotropic heat diffusion code EMC3-Lite to find ``giant island" W7-X configurations which are promising for PFC heat loads. Coil forces analysis (in addition to other effects such as neoclassical transport and magnetohydrodynamic stability) would also be required but are not explored here. It is not known whether giant islands are intrinsically favourable for divertor performance but we demonstrate that such regimes, which are far from the ordinary island divertor, are obtainable and can in principle be studied experimentally. This also reveals the flexibility of existing machines for edge studies beyond their original design space.