Runaway electron seed formation at reactor-relevant temperature

Systematic variation of the pre-disruption core electron temperature (T_e) from 1 to 12 keV using an internal transport barrier scenario reveals a dramatic increase in the production of ‘seed’ runaway electrons (REs), ultimately accessing near-complete conversion of the pre-disruption current into sub-MeV RE current. Injected Ar pellets are observed to ablate more intensely and promptly as T_e rises. At high T_e, the observed ablation exceeds predictions from published thermal ablation models. Simultaneously, the thermal quench (TQ) is observed to significantly shorten with increasing T_e—a surprising result. While the reason for the shorter TQ is not yet understood, candidate mechanisms include: insufficiently accurate thermal ablation models, enhanced ablation driven by the seed RE population, or significant parallel heat transport along stochastic fields. Kinetic modeling that self-consistently treats the plasma cooling via radiation, the induced electric field, and the formation of the seed RE is performed. Including the combined effect of the inherent dependence of hot-tail RE seeding on T_e together with the shortened TQ, modeling recovers the progression towards near-complete conversion of the pre-disruption current to RE current as T_e rises. Measurement of the HXR spectrum during the early current quench (CQ) reveals a trend of decreasing energy with pre-disruption T_e. At the very highest T_e (≈ 12 keV), ≈ 100% conversion of the thermal current to runaway current is found. The energy of this peculiar RE beam is inferred to be sub-MeV as it emits vanishingly few MeV hard x-rays (HXRs). These measurements demonstrate novel TQ dynamics as Te is varied and illustrate the limitations of treating the RE seed formation problem without considering the inter-related dependencies of the pellet ablation, radiative energy loss, and resultant variations of the TQ duration. Finally, if the observed shortening of the TQ with increasing T_e extends to fusion-grade plasmas, than their propensity to form large quantities of RE seeds at high T_e may be far worse than previously thought. Positively, the high T_e scenario in DIII-D produces REs so prodigiously that it can serve as a meaningful new platform for demonstrating RE avoidance techniques.