Carbon impurity measurements in the HSX stellarator

Impurity behavior in stellarators is not fully understood despite important implications on device performance, in particular, an accumulation of core impurities can lead to degradation of plasma energy due to radiative losses. Experiments are being conducted at HSX to measure the radial profiles and the time history of carbon impurity density using the charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (CXRS) diagnostic. Measurements of fully ionized carbon have been performed on various magnetic configurations, showing a peaked profile at the core in the standard configuration. An inversion technique was also developed to calculate localized C +5 profiles. Comparisons of impurity behavior between the standard and broken-symmetry configurations are presented.