After a long device enhancement phase, scientific operation resumed in 2022. The main new device components are the water cooling of all plasma facing components and the new water-cooled high heat flux divertor units. Water cooling allowed for the first long-pulse operation campaign. A maximum discharge length of 8 min was achieved with a total heating energy of 1.3 GJ. Safe divertor operation was demonstrated in attached and detached mode. Stable detachment is readily achieved in some magnetic configurations but requires impurity seeding in configurations with small magnetic pitch angle within the edge islands. Progress was made in the characterization of transport mechanisms across edge magnetic islands: Measurement of the potential distribution and flow pattern reveals that the islands are associated with a strong poloidal drift, which leads to rapid convection of energy and particles from the last closed flux surface into the scrape-off layer. Using the upgraded plasma heating systems, advanced heating scenarios were developed, which provide improved energy confinement comparable to the scenario, in which the record triple product for stellarators was achieved in the previous operation campaign. However, a magnetic configuration-dependent critical heating power limit of the electron cyclotron resonance heating was observed. Exceeding the respective power limit leads to a degradation of the confinement.

Sawtooth crashes are observed during ECCD experiments at the superconducting optimized stellarator Wendelstein 7-X. The study and the characterization are necessary in order to understand under which condition ECCD can be driven without posing a risk to experimental operations. The development of automatic tools is crucial to speed up the analysis of extensive datasets. In this work, we report on the first attempt of using a data-driven approach to automatically characterize the sawtooth crashes. Cluster algorithms are applied to the dataset, confirming the existence of two distinct types of crashes. This approach allows to study the two groups separately and underlines the different plasma parameters that influence the sawtooth crash parameters, for instance crash amplitude and period.

Wendelstein 7-X, the world largest superconducting advanced stellarator, aims to demonstrate high-performance steady-state experiments lasting up to 30 min. To this purpose, high heat flux (HHF) divertors capable of withstanding steady-state heat fluxes up to 10 MW/m2 are being installed on the machine, in preparation for the next experimental campaign (OP2.1). The real-time heat flux estimation is pivotal for controlling the divertor heat loads during the experiments. Currently, the THEODOR (Thermal Energy Onto DivertOR) code computes the heat flux offline by numerically solving the heat equation, but the computation time does not allow the application of this approach to the real-time operation of the device. In this work, a new approach based on Physics Informed Neural Networks (PINNs) is proposed for solving the heat equation and estimating the heat fluxes on the divertor tiles in real time. PINN models are Neural Networks that learn Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) by minimizing the PDE loss. The inputs of a PINN are the independent variables of the PDE, e.g., spatiotemporal coordinates, while the loss of the model is designed to make the neural network satisfy the PDE and related initial and boundary conditions. Hence, the model can be trained without any experimental data. Only the initial and boundary conditions of the PDE are necessary for constructing the model. First intermediate results are discussed considering a normalized tile and starting from a constant thermal diffusivity.

High-β operations require a fast and robust inference of plasma parameters with a self-consistent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equilibrium. Precalculated MHD equilibria are usually employed at Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) due to the high computational cost. To address this, we couple a physics-regularized artificial neural network (NN) model that approximates the ideal-MHD equilibrium with the Bayesian modeling framework Minerva. We show the fast and robust inference of plasma profiles (electron temperature and density) with a self-consistent MHD equilibrium approximated by the NN model. We investigate the robustness of the inference across diverse synthetic W7-X plasma scenarios. The inferred plasma parameters and their uncertainties are compatible with the parameters inferred using the variational moments equilibrium code (VMEC), and the inference time is reduced by more than two orders of magnitude. This work suggests that MHD self-consistent inferences of plasma parameters can be performed between shots.

We present recent highlights from the most recent operation phases of Wendelstein 7-X, the most advanced stellarator in the world. Stable detachment with good particle exhaust, low impurity content, and energy confinement times exceeding 100 ms, have been maintained for tens of seconds. Pellet fueling allows for plasma phases with reduced ion-temperature-gradient turbulence, and during such phases, the overall confinement is so good (energy confinement times often exceeding 200 ms) that the attained density and temperature profiles would not have been possible in less optimized devices, since they would have had neoclassical transport losses exceeding the heating applied in W7-X. This provides proof that the reduction of neoclassical transport through magnetic field optimization is successful. W7-X plasmas generally show good impurity screening and high plasma purity, but there is evidence of longer impurity confinement times during turbulence-suppressed phases.

Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), the largest advanced stellarator, is built to demonstrate high power, high performance quasi-continuous operation. Therefore, in the recent campaign, experiments were performed to prepare for long pulse operation, addressing three critical issues: the development of stable detachment, control of the heat and particle exhaust, and the impact of leading edges on plasma performance. The heat and particle exhaust in W7-X is realized with the help of an island divertor, which utilizes large magnetic islands at the plasma boundary. This concept shows very efficient heat flux spreading and favourable scaling with input power. Experiments performed to overload leading edges showed that the island divertor yields good impurity screening. A highlight of the recent campaign was a robust detachment scenario, which allowed reducing power loads even by a factor of ten. At the same time, neutral pressures at the pumping gap entrance yielded the particle removal rate close to the values required for stable density control in steady-state operation.

Within the framework of R&D activities on the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator machine, the assessment of heat loads onto the plasma facing components (PFCs) is an important aspect. So far, W7-X was operated in short pulses without water cooling of the PFCs. Presently, the device is being prepared for future operation phases with water cooling. The target plates, which receive the highest heat loads, are monitored by a thermography system. The rest of the first wall (heat shield) is not designed to receive convective particle loads, and it is in part poorly monitored by the infrared cameras. Recent studies have shown that for many plasma configurations there are locations on the heat shield which do receive significant convective heat flux. This is in particular true for the heat shields adjacent to the target plates (called baffles) and for configurations with finite plasma pressure, where the magnetic configuration is modified by plasma currents. On the other side, the heat flux limit to the baffle tiles had to be reduced from 0.50 to 0.25 MW/m(2). In this work an evaluation of the heat flux to targets and baffles in plasma configurations with finite plasma pressure is presented. To this end, Field Line Diffusion (FLD) calculations have been performed to obtain the heat load pattern distributions for the considered magnetic configurations. The results have been assessed statistically to achieve a measure of certainty in the prediction of an overload in a certain location. The possibility of overloads onto the baffles due to plasma radiation has also been investigated. The results of the entire analysis show that local temperature monitoring by thermocouples in a rather limited number of locations will be sufficient to avoid heat flux overloads of the baffles and heat shields in all magnetic configurations considered.

The optimized superconducting stellarator device Wendelstein 7-X (with major radius , minor radius , and plasma volume) restarted operation after the assembly of a graphite heat shield and 10 inertially cooled island divertor modules. This paper reports on the results from the first high-performance plasma operation. Glow discharge conditioning and ECRH conditioning discharges in helium turned out to be important for density and edge radiation control. Plasma densities of with central electron temperatures were routinely achieved with hydrogen gas fueling, frequently terminated by a radiative collapse. In a first stage, plasma densities up to were reached with hydrogen pellet injection and helium gas fueling. Here, the ions are indirectly heated, and at a central density of a temperature of with was transiently accomplished, which corresponds to with a peak diamagnetic energy of and volume-averaged normalized plasma pressure . The routine access to high plasma densities was opened with boronization of the first wall. After boronization, the oxygen impurity content was reduced by a factor of 10, the carbon impurity content by a factor of 5. The reduced (edge) plasma radiation level gives routinely access to higher densities without radiation collapse, e.g. well above line integrated density and central temperatures at moderate ECRH power. Both X2 and O2 mode ECRH schemes were successfully applied. Core turbulence was measured with a phase contrast imaging diagnostic and suppression of turbulence during pellet injection was observed.

Wendelstein 7-X is a low-shear stellarator with an island divertor, formed by natural magnetic islands at the plasma edge and ten modular divertor units for particle and energy exhaust. For the island divertor concept to work properly, the device is optimized for small internal currents. In particular, the bootstrap current is minimized. Previous studies predicted a thermal overload of the targets at a particular location, due to the slow evolution of the toroidal net current in the initial phase of certain otherwise desirable high-power discharges. The present numerical study explores the neoclassical predictions for the bootstrap current in more detail and demonstrates, as a proof of principle, that a path from low density and low heating power to high density and full heating power exists, on which the bootstrap current remains constant. This offers the possibility to reach the predetermined toroidal net current at low heating power, where no overload will occur in the transient phase.

After completing the main construction phase of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) and successfully commissioning the device, first plasma operation started at the end of 2015. Integral commissioning of plasma start-up and operation using electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and an extensive set of plasma diagnostics have been completed, allowing initial physics studies during the first operational campaign. Both in helium and hydrogen, plasma breakdown was easily achieved. Gaining experience with plasma vessel conditioning, discharge lengths could be extended gradually. Eventually, discharges lasted up to 6 s, reaching an injected energy of 4 MJ, which is twice the limit originally agreed for the limiter configuration employed during the first operational campaign. At power levels of 4 MW central electron densities reached 3 x 10(19) m(-3), central electron temperatures reached values of 7 keV and ion temperatures reached just above 2 keV. Important physics studies during this first operational phase include a first assessment of power balance and energy confinement, ECRH power deposition experiments, 2nd harmonic O-mode ECRH using multi-pass absorption, and current drive experiments using electron cyclotron current drive. As in many plasma discharges the electron temperature exceeds the ion temperature significantly, these plasmas are governed by core electron root confinement showing a strong positive electric field in the plasma centre.