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Spectroscopic Studies of Cold Atomic Hydrogen and Deuterium Produced in a Tokamak Edge Plasma
Author(s) -
Hey J.D.,
Chu C.C.,
Hintz E.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
contributions to plasma physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1521-3986
pISSN - 0863-1042
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1521-3986(200004)40:1/2<9::aid-ctpp9>3.0.co;2-f
Subject(s) - atomic physics , deuterium , excited state , plasma , balmer series , tokamak , hydrogen , dissociation (chemistry) , ion , materials science , physics , spectral line , emission spectrum , chemistry , nuclear physics , quantum mechanics , astronomy
Spectroscopic measurements of low‐ n Balmer line profiles of atomic hydrogen and deuterium, emitted within the edge region of the TEXTOR‐94 tokamak plasma, have revealed the existence of a class of cold excited atoms, whose probable origin has been ascribed to electron impact‐induced molecular dissociation. Associated with these cold radiators are a second group of ‘lukewarm’ atoms, i.e. atoms heated by elastic collisions with hot protons (deuterons) diffusing outward from the plasma interior, as well as a third group of ‘hot’ atoms, produced in the corresponding excited states directly by charge‐exchange recombination between protons (deuterons) and boundary region atoms. A mechanism recently proposed to explain the heating process quantitatively, in terms of elastic atom‐ion collisions, is applied and discussed in this paper.