Breakdown Phase in the GOLEM Tokamak and Its Impact on Plasma Performance

Abstract

The effect of the breakdown phase on subsequent plasma parameters in GOLEM tokamak is investigated remotely. The dependence of the breakdown voltage and the breakdown time on the time delay between the switchings-on of a toroidal magnetic field Bt and a toroidal electric field Et for different groups of the pressure magnitudes is built. The performed experiments have shown that, for GOLEM tokamak, the shorter the temporal delay, the better are the mean plasma parameters. In addition, the breakdown phase is discussed in more details. In the discussion, the avalanche phase of the breakdown is analyzed. The dominant mechanism of particle losses during the avalanche phase, future steps, and tasks are discussed and set. The experiments on studying the breakdown phase have been carried out remotely on GOLEM tokamak by undergraduate students of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.