A unified model of density limit in fusion plasmas

Abstract

A limit for the edge density, ruled by radiation losses from light impurities, is established by a minimal cylindrical magneto-thermal equilibrium model. For ohmic tokamak and reversed field pinch the limit scales linearly with the plasma current, as the empirical Greenwald limit. The auxiliary heating adds a further dependence, scaling with the 0.4 power, in agreement with L-mode tokamak experiments. For a purely externally heated configuration the limit takes on a Sudo-like form, depending mainly on the input power, and is compatible with recent Stellarator scalings.