Two-dimensional effects in plasma radiation fronts and radiation front jumps in tokamak divertor plasmas

The impact of two-dimensional (2-D) effects of energy transport on impurity radiation fronts in a tokamak divertor plasma is considered. It is shown that 2-D effects significantly alter both the physics of the fronts and the radiation loss from the divertor plasma, and may explain the experimental observations of impurity radiation region jumps from the target to the X point and easier access to a detached divertor regime in “vertical” target geometry in comparison with the “horizontal” case.