Plasma polarization spectroscopy of atomic and molecular emissions from magnetically confined plasmas1This review is part of a Special Issue on the 10th International Colloquium on Atomic Spectra and Oscillator Strengths for Astrophysical and Laboratory Plasmas.

Abstract

In spectroscopic measurements of magnetically confined torus plasmas, the line-integrated emission along a viewing chord is usually observed. However, by utilizing the dependence of the magnitude of the Zeeman splitting on the emission location, a few localized emissions existing along the viewing chord can be separated. A detailed analysis of the Zeeman split spectral lineshapes then makes it possible to evaluate the local values of the magnetic field strength, population density, temperature, and flow velocity. We have introduced polarization spectroscopy to improve the accuracy in separating the overlapped spectra. The polarization resolved Hα, He I, and H2 Fulcher-α band spectra are measured in the TRIAM-1M tokamak, and the atomic and molecular dynamics are investigated. Further progress in the simultaneous measurements of the Balmer series and Fulcher-α band spectra in LHD, and extension to the CH Gerö band spectra, are briefly presented.