A detailed description of the 14 MeV neutron emission in plasmas heated by neutral beam injection has been carried out by coupling Monte Carlo calculations of the neutron emission spectrum with TRANSP modelling of the beam ion energy distributions. The model is used to study tritium beam injection experiments of the JET trace tritium campaign for internal transport barrier (ITB) and H-mode discharges. For ITB discharges, the measured neutron emission spectrum is well described by modelling using as input the beam ion distribution calculated with TRANSP. For H mode discharges the neutron spectrum can be reproduced only if high energy tritons are lost from the plasma, suggesting the possible role of low frequency tearing modes on the beam ions. The presented results are of relevance for tritium beam transport studies in trace tritium experiments and, more generally, for deuterium and tritium transport studies in high power experiments using neutron emission spectroscopy.
Neutron emission study of DT plasmas heated with tritium neutral beams