Development of Monte Carlo neutral transport code and the application to methane seeding plasma detachment

Abstract

The collisions between neutral particles and plasma in the divertor region determine divertor detachment and heat flux to the target. However, the diagnostic of neutral particle information in the tokamak experiment is very lacking. To study the behavior of neutral particles in the boundary region flexibly and comprehensively, a two-dimensional kinetic neutral transport code based on Monte Carlo method is developed in this work. The code is applied to simulate the neutral particles in the boundary of EAST device. Firstly, the simulation results are compared with EIRENE using an identical plasma background, and good agreement is obtained. Secondly, the transport of methane and the corresponding hydrocarbon compounds is simulated using the developed code. The methane injection case is compared with the injection of carbon and deuterium molecule mixture gas (ratio 1:2) to investigate their impact on detachment and fueling. The simulation reveals that, compared to the direct carbon atom injection case, charge-exchange collision is the dominant collision of neutral methane (hydrocarbons), which suppresses divertor power radiation and plasma detachment while promoting the improvement of fueling efficiency.