RF-Specific Tungsten Erosion and Global Transport in ITER under Neon Seeding
Abstract
Ion cyclotron radio-frequency heating (ICRH) is a key auxiliary heating system in ITER, but high-power RF operation can enhance plasma-material interactions through rectified RF sheath potentials on antenna structures and nearby plasma-facing components. We present the first predictive application of the STRIPE (Simulated Transport of RF Impurity Production and Emission) framework to assess RF sheath-driven tungsten (W) erosion and global impurity transport from the ITER ICRH antenna under ITER-relevant neon-seeded conditions. STRIPE couples SOLPS-ITER plasma backgrounds, full-wave RF sheath calculations, geometry-specific ion energy-angle distributions, sputtering physics, and three-dimensional impurity transport. Simulations predict RF sheath potentials of 1 to 3 kV on antenna limiter sidewalls, increasing gross W erosion by about a factor of 64 relative to thermal sheath conditions and producing a gross source of 3.34e18 W atoms per second. Erosion is governed by RF-modified ion energy-angle distributions together with local plasma flux rather than sheath voltage alone. About 10 percent of sputtered W is locally redeposited, giving a net source of 3.01e18 W atoms per second. The RF-induced antenna source remains about three orders of magnitude smaller than the thermal divertor source and more than two orders of magnitude smaller than the integrated thermal main-chamber source. After 100 ms, about 22 percent of the mobile W inventory resides within the SOLPS-covered confined-plasma region, corresponding to an annular W concentration of 1.70e-6. These results indicate that the ITER ICRH antenna is unlikely to dominate the total W source budget under the conditions considered and demonstrate the need for coupled modeling of RF waves, sheaths, sputtering, redeposition, and global impurity transport.
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BibTeX
@misc{kumar2026rfspecific,
title = {{RF-Specific Tungsten Erosion and Global Transport in ITER under Neon Seeding}},
author = {Atul Kumar and Dhyanjyoti Nath and Wouter Tierens and Jeremy D. Lore and Andrei Pshenov and Tom Wauters and Andrea Galvan and Davide Curreli and Syun'ichi Shiraiwa and Nicola Bertelli and Guillaume Urbanczyk and Sebastijan Brezinsek and Onkar Sahni and Mark Shephard and Walid Helou and Xavier Bonnin and Klaus Schmid and Volodymyr Bobkov},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.09408},
eprint = {2609.09408},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09408},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - RF-Specific Tungsten Erosion and Global Transport in ITER under Neon Seeding
AU - Atul Kumar
AU - Dhyanjyoti Nath
AU - Wouter Tierens
AU - Jeremy D. Lore
AU - Andrei Pshenov
AU - Tom Wauters
AU - Andrea Galvan
AU - Davide Curreli
AU - Syun'ichi Shiraiwa
AU - Nicola Bertelli
AU - Guillaume Urbanczyk
AU - Sebastijan Brezinsek
AU - Onkar Sahni
AU - Mark Shephard
AU - Walid Helou
AU - Xavier Bonnin
AU - Klaus Schmid
AU - Volodymyr Bobkov
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.09408
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09408
AB - Ion cyclotron radio-frequency heating (ICRH) is a key auxiliary heating system in ITER, but high-power RF operation can enhance plasma-material interactions through rectified RF sheath potentials on antenna structures and nearby plasma-facing components. We present the first predictive application of the STRIPE (Simulated Transport of RF Impurity Production and Emission) framework to assess RF sheath-driven tungsten (W) erosion and global impurity transport from the ITER ICRH antenna under ITER-relevant neon-seeded conditions. STRIPE couples SOLPS-ITER plasma backgrounds, full-wave RF sheath calculations, geometry-specific ion energy-angle distributions, sputtering physics, and three-dimensional impurity transport. Simulations predict RF sheath potentials of 1 to 3 kV on antenna limiter sidewalls, increasing gross W erosion by about a factor of 64 relative to thermal sheath conditions and producing a gross source of 3.34e18 W atoms per second. Erosion is governed by RF-modified ion energy-angle distributions together with local plasma flux rather than sheath voltage alone. About 10 percent of sputtered W is locally redeposited, giving a net source of 3.01e18 W atoms per second. The RF-induced antenna source remains about three orders of magnitude smaller than the thermal divertor source and more than two orders of magnitude smaller than the integrated thermal main-chamber source. After 100 ms, about 22 percent of the mobile W inventory resides within the SOLPS-covered confined-plasma region, corresponding to an annular W concentration of 1.70e-6. These results indicate that the ITER ICRH antenna is unlikely to dominate the total W source budget under the conditions considered and demonstrate the need for coupled modeling of RF waves, sheaths, sputtering, redeposition, and global impurity transport.
ER -