Spatial characteristics of luminous hydrocarbon pellet clouds in the large helical device

Abstract This study analyzes the dependences of the size of the luminous region of hydrocarbon pellet cloud on the ablation rate, as well as on the ambient plasma electron density and temperature. The data were obtained in a series of experiments where spherical solid polystyrene pellets with a diameter of ≈900 μ m at a speed of ≈450 m s −1 were injected into hydrogen plasma of the large helical device. The ambient plasma with an electron temperature of 0.5–1.5 keV and a density of (1–7) × 10 19 m −3 was maintained by injection of neutral atom beams with total the heating power of 3–14 MW. A scaling law was derived for determining the transverse size of the cloud’s luminous region from the known values of the pellet’s current radius as well as the values of the density and temperature of the ambient plasma at the place of image acquisition. The interdependencies between various dimensions of the luminous region obtained in the line spectrum are established. The presence of such dependences makes it possible to describe the dimensions of the luminous region comprehensively by means of the scaling law for its transverse size.