Effect of the Potential of Confined Plasma on End-Loss Ion in GAMMA 10/PDX

In the GAMMA 10/PDX tandem mirror, studies on divertor physics have been performed in the west end region by utilizing end-loss plasmas flowing from the confinement region. Since the plasma density in the end region is quite low (∼1016 m−3), an increase of the end-loss ion flux is required. The increase of the end-loss ion flux has been obtained by increasing the density in the confinement region on previous experiments. When an additional ICRF heating using the antennas in the anchor cells has been performed, a significant increase of the ion flux has been observed with the increase of the potential in the central cell although the change of line densities in the confinement region is little. The effect of the potential on the ion flux has been examined on the GAMMA 10/PDX using about 10,000 discharges. The ion flux increases almost linearly with the potential and the density increase. By comparing with a simple calculation, the increase of the ion flux is explained by the expansion of loss cone boundary of ions and the decrease of the transport time of the end-loss ions from the confinement region to the end region