Re-construction of detached divertor plasma conditions in DIII-D using spectroscopic and probe data

Abstract For some divertor aspects, such as detached plasmas or the private flux zone, it is not clear that the controlling physics has been fully identified. This is a particular concern when the details of the plasma are likely to be important in modeling the problem – for example, modeling co-deposition in detached inner divertors. An empirical method of ‘reconstructing’ the plasma based on direct experimental measurements may be useful in such situations. It is shown that a detached plasma in the outer divertor leg of DIII-D can be reconstructed reasonably well using spectroscopic and probe data as input to a simple onion-skin model and the Monte Carlo hydrogenic code, EIRENE. The calculated 2D distributions of n e and T e in the detached divertor were compared with direct measurements from the divertor Thomson scattering system, a diagnostic capability unique to DIII-D.