Scrape-off layer-induced beam density fluctuations and their effect on beam emission spectroscopy

A statistical model is presented to calculate the magnitude of beam density fluctuations generated by a turbulent scrape-off layer (SOL). It is shown that the SOL can induce neutral beam density fluctuations of a similar magnitude to the plasma density fluctuations in the core, potentially corrupting beam emission spectroscopy measurements. The degree of corruption is quantified by combining simulations of beam and plasma density fluctuations inside a simulated measurement window. A change in pitch angle from the separatrix to the measurement window is found to reduce the effect of beam fluctuations, whose largest effect is to significantly reduce the measured correlation time.