Reduction of ELM energy loss by pellet injection for ELM pacing

The energy loss caused by the edge-localized mode (ELM) needs to be reduced for ITER operations with ELMy H-mode plasmas. The reduction in ELM energy loss by pellet injection for ELM pacing is studied by an integrated core/scrape-off layer/divertor transport code TOPICS-IB with a magnetohydrodynamic stability code and a pellet model taking account of the E × B drift of the pellet plasma cloud. It is found that the energy loss can be significantly reduced by a pellet injected to the pedestal plasma equivalent to that at the middle timing in the natural ELM cycle, whose pressure height is only about 5% lower than that of the natural ELM onset. In this case, pellet injection from the low-field side enables a small pellet, with about 1–2% of pedestal particle content and a speed high enough to approach the pedestal top, to reduce the energy loss significantly. With the above suitable conditions for ELM pacing, a pellet penetrates deep into the pedestal and triggers high-n ballooning modes with localized eigenfunctions near the pedestal top, where n is the toroidal mode number. Under suitable conditions, ELM pacing with reduced energy loss is successfully demonstrated in simulations, in which the gas puff reduction and the enhancement of divertor pumping can compensate for the core density increase due to additional particle fuelling by the pacing pellet.