Effects of toroidally-distributed-divertor biasing on scrape-off-layer (SOL) current drive, divertor particle flux and fast electron confinement in the QUEST spherical tokamak

A novel divertor biasing by four biasing plates distributed toroidally (TDDB) on the upper divertor target plate is applied to low density tokamak plasmas started-up by 28 GHz 2nd harmonic electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) in a quasi-double null configuration of the QUEST spherical tokamak (ST). In the ST plasmas of line averaged electron density < n(e) > similar to 0.7-1 x 10(18) m(-3), about 20%-40% of the current I-bias driven by similar to 85 V sawtooth bias voltage reaches the lower divertor plate along the biased scrape-off-layer (SOL) flux tube as the SOL current I-SOL . The fact I-SOL is noticeably lower than I-bias indicates an appreciable leakage of parallel current from the biased SOL flux tube. The leakage currents in the toroidal and radial directions are confirmed by detection of them using the unbiased plates in the TDDB experiments. From the ion saturation current density profile obtained by a divertor Langmuir probe array, the fall-off lengths of divertor particle flux are estimated together with the strike line position. Total particle flux to the upper divertor, evaluated by the integrated ion saturation current density profile is reduced by up to 45% during positive biasing of the TDDB, depending on the position of the strike line to the biased plate. In addition, the TDDB also induces a noticeable loss of fast electrons produced by ECCD, leading to an similar to 2% reduction in the maximum toroidal current of the ST plasma compared to a shot without the TDDB. Reduction of the divertor particle flux and enhancement of the fast electron losses are thought to be dominantly caused by E x B drift induced by the TDDB. In the present experimental conditions, the effects of magnetic perturbations produced by the SOL currents on the fast electron losses can be neglected because of a too small SOL current.