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Following two initial campaigns [1], Stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) has now completed the construction phase by installation of active cooling of all plasma facing components. The machine is presently commissioned for the next campaign (OP2) aiming at 1 GJ per pulse, e.g. 100 s at 10 MW, eventually aiming at 18 GJ, e.g. 1800 s at 10 MW. The key heating system is the Electron Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ECRH) system, consisting of 10 gyrotrons with power per gyrotron ranging from 0.6 MW up to 1.0 MW at 140 GHz. A phased upgrade of the installation is in progress with the addition of 2 gyrotrons and the development of 1.5 MW and 2.0 MW gyrotrons, such that at the end of the upgrade 4 gyrotrons will be available in each power class of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 MW [2]. The increased ECRH power, combined with O2 and X3 heating schemes at high densities, will lead to increased microwave stray radiation. This is non-absorbed microwave power that diffuses inside the vessel and is incident on all in-vessel components including vacuum windows and attached diagnostic systems. A fraction of the stray radiation is absorbed by resistive or dielectric losses of these components, leading to thermal loads that scale with stray radiation levels and pulse length. At W7-X a high power microwave stray radiation launch facility ’MISTRAL’ is available that is used to qualify invessel components for use at specified microwave surface power densities [Wm−2]. This paper reports on MISTRAL campaigns in 2020 2021 for testing of stray radiation loads during OP2 in W7-X, as well as on an EUROfusion program assessing stray radiation loads on ITER components. A dedicated, absolutely calibrated, caloric load was developed for the campaign to obtain measurement of stray radiation power levels as well as to conveniently expose samples. Amongst other we report on shielding concepts using metal enclosures combined with microwave absorbing coatings and dielectric heating of vacuum windows.

This paper characterizes the correlation of simultaneous measurements with different fast-ion H-alpha (FIDA) spectroscopy sightlines on Wendelstein 7-X. Using a collisionless guiding-center code, it is shown that, for two investigated volumes in the bulk of the plasma, some regions of phase space are correlated and the magnetic configuration has little influence on this correlation. For the sightlines of the FIDA system, the correlation between these is explained well by the magnetic configuration. Sightlines with measurement volumes at the same spatial locations have the highest correlation, and sightlines with measurement volumes near the same flux surface but on different sides of the magnetic axis have a high correlation. The correlation between the blueshifted signal in the starting sightline and redshifted signal in the detection sightline is investigated, demonstrating that it is possible to investigate any finite interval of detection wavelengths. Due to the different shapes of the weight functions for the toroidal and oblique sightlines, the blue–redshift correlation is very different from the total–spectrum correlation. The correlation between the toroidal and oblique sightline fans is relatively much larger than the internal correlation in the oblique sightlines, which is however, much larger than the internal correlation in the toroidal sightlines. This is a result of the dependence of the weight functions on the angle between the sightline and magnetic field, illustrating how important it is for the FIDA sightlines to cover different angles with the magnetic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) is the main heating mechanism in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator (W7-X). W7-X is equipped with five absolutely calibrated sniffer probes that are installed in each of the five modules of the device. The sniffer probes monitor energy flux of unabsorbed ECRH radiation in the device and interlocks are fed with the sniffer probe signals. The stray radiation level in the device changes significantly during the start-up phase: plasma is a strong microwave absorber and during its formation the stray radiation level in sniffer probes reduces by more than 95%. In this paper, we discuss the influence of neutral gas pressure and gyrotron power on plasma breakdown processes.

During the first operational phase (OP 1.1) of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) was the exclusive heating method and provided plasma start-up, wall conditioning, heating and current drive. Six gyrotrons were commissioned for OP1.1 and used in parallel for plasma operation with a power of up to 4.3 MW. During standard X2-heating the spatially localized power deposition with high power density allowed controlling the radial profiles of the electron temperature and the rotational transform. Even though W7-X was not fully equipped with first wall tiles and operated with a graphite limiter instead of a divertor, electron densities of n e > 3·1019 m-3 could be achieved at electron temperatures of several keV and ion temperatures above 2 keV. These plasma parameters allowed the first demonstration of a multipath O2-heating scenario, which is envisaged for safe operation near the X-cutoff-density of 1.2·1020 m-3 after full commissioning of the ECRH system in the next operation phase OP1.2.

This paper describes the distribution of plant communities from various associations, identified from the standpoint of the ecological-phytocenotic approach, occupying the tidal flat of low and medium marshes, which are under the influence of tide range, different values of pH and water salinity. According to the degree of pH influence, we identified acidotrophic, alkalotrophic, and indifferent phytocenoses, combined into different associations. Most associations of the estuaries with different tide range are alkalotrophic, there are noticeably fewer acidotrophic ones; a few eurytopic communities from the Phragmitetum australis, Bolboschoenetum maritimae, and Caricetum aquatilis associations are classified as indifferent. The study shows that the coastal vegetation of the marshes of the mesotidal estuaries of the White Sea develops in stable pH conditions in the range from 7.2 to 7.6. The formation of coastal vegetation is less stable in the macrotidal estuaries of the Mezen Bay, most of them form at pH = 7.0-8.3. Halophyte vegetation forms in the widest range of pH (6.2-8.3) in the marshes of microtidal estuaries in the Dvina Bay of the White Sea, which are more affected by floods than other estuaries. The halophytic vegetation of the White Sea develops in a wide range of salinity fluctuations from brackish to marine waters. However, the majority of plant associations in the rivers estuaries occupy the habitats of weakly saline waters with 10 to 25% salinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports about a novel approach to the absolute intensity calibration of an electron cyclotron emission (ECE) spectroscopy system. Typically, an ECE radiometer consists of tens of separated frequency channels corresponding to different plasma locations. An absolute calibration of the overall diagnostic including near plasma optics and transmission line is achieved with blackbody sources at LN2 temperature and room temperature via a hot/cold calibration mirror unit. As the thermal emission of the calibration source is typically a few thousand times lower than the receiver noise temperature, coherent averaging over several hours is required to get a sufficient signal to noise ratio. A forward model suitable for any radiometer calibration using the hot/cold method and a periodic switch between them has been developed and used to extract the voltage difference between the hot and cold temperature source via Bayesian analysis. In contrast to the classical analysis which evaluates only the reference temperatures, the forward model takes into account intermediate effective temperatures caused by the finite beam width and thus uses all available data optimally. This allows the evaluation of weak channels where a classical analysis would not be feasible, is statistically rigorous, and provides a measurement of the beam width. By using a variance scaling factor, a model sensitive adaptation of the absolute uncertainties can be implemented, which will be used for the combined diagnostic Bayesian modeling analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]