Erlangen 2026 – scientific programme

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P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik

P 16: Poster Session Plasma Physics

P 16.85: Poster

Thursday, March 19, 2026, 13:45–15:45, Redoutensaal

Radiative power exhaust in Alternative Divertor Configurations at ASDEX Upgrade — •Alessandro Mancini, Matthias Bernert, Tilmann Lunt, Dominik Brida, Felix Albrecht, and the ASDEX Upgrade team — Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP Garching)

Power exhaust is a major challenge in the development of tokamaks as fusion reactors. The unmitigated power flux in a reactor is expected to be several orders of magnitude higher than the heat load limit for tungsten plasma facing components (PFCs).

Alternative Divertor Configurations (ADCs) feature an increased flux expansion and/or secondary X-Points to lower the heat load on the PFCs by easing the access to detachment, where the plasma recombines before reaching the wall. Therefore, ADCs may be taken into consideration for future tokamak reactors. The ASDEX Upgrade tokamak was recently upgraded with a new upper divertor that can produce ADCs, like X-Divertor (XD), Snowflake Minus (SF-), super Compact Radiative Divertor (sCRD). This work focuses on the power exhaust capabilities of ADCs, in particular on the radiated power distribution. Bolometer data is complemented by Langmuir probe data to characterize the detachment.

It is observed that ADCs highly modify the radiation distribution. The SF- configuration facilitates X-Point Radiators (XPR), even at low impurity seeding levels. Fast transitions in the radiation pattern are observed even with a slow variation of the ADC configuration.

Keywords: Nuclear fusion; Plasma physics; Tokamak; ASDEX Upgrade; Alternative divertor configuration