High-fidelity inference of local impurity profiles in C-2W using Bayesian tomography

In C-2W (also called “Norman”) [1], beam-driven field reversed configuration plasmas embedded in a magnetic mirror are produced and sustained in a steady state. A multi-chord passive Doppler spectroscopy diagnostic provides line-integrated impurity emission measurements near the center plane of the confinement vessel with fast time resolution. The high degree of plasma non-uniformity across optical sightlines can preclude direct fitting of the measured line-integrated spectra. To overcome this challenge, local impurity profiles are inferred using Bayesian tomography, a superior analysis technique based on a complete forward model of the diagnostic. The measured emission of O4+ triplet lines near 278.4 nm is modeled assuming two independent populations: thermal and beam ions. Gaussian processes are used to generate and infer local profiles. The inference incorporates details of the geometrical arrangement of the diagnostic, instrument function, intensity calibration, and a noise model. Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling of the posterior distribution of solutions provides high-fidelity uncertainty estimates. The reconstructed O4+ impurity profiles are consistent with data from other diagnostics and show good agreement with expected physics based on previously developed models of biasing circuit and impurity transport.