Thermal effects in high power cavities for photoneutralization of D− beams in future neutral beam injectors

Photoneutralization may represent a key issue in the neutral beam injectors for future fusion reactors. In fact, photodetachment based neutralization combined with an energy recovery system increase the injector overall efficiency up to 60%. This is the SIPHORE injector concept in which photoneutralization is realized in a refolded cavity [1]. However, about 1 W of the several megaWatts intracavity power is absorbed by the mirrors coatings and gives rise to important thermoelastic distortions. This is expected to change the optical behavior of the mirrors and reduce the enhancement factor of the cavity. In this paper, we estimate these effects and we propose a thermal system to compensate it.