Healing plasma current ramp-up by Nitrogen seeding in the full Tungsten environment of WEST

Achieving a successful plasma current ramp-up in a full Tungsten tokamak can be challenging due to the large core radiation (and resulting low core temperature) that can be faced with this heavy metallic impurity if its relative concentration is too high. Nitrogen injection during the plasma current ramp-up of WEST discharges greatly improves core temperature and Magneto-Hydro-Dynamic stability. Experimental measurements and integrated simulations with the RAPTOR code complemented with the Qualikiz Neural Network for computing turbulent transport allow a detailed understanding of the mechanisms at play. Increased edge radiation during this transient phase is shown to improve confinement properties, driving higher core temperature and better MHD stability. This also leads to increased operation margins with respect to Tungsten contamination.

Анализ потерь быстрых ионов, вызванных распространением тороидальных альфвеновских мод в плазме сферического токамака Глобус-М2

With an increase of magnetic field up to 0.8 T and plasma current to 400 kA, fast ion losses rate in the discharges with toroidal Alfven eigenmodes decreased in tokamak Globus-M2 comparing with Globus-M tokamak discharges. Taking into account the data on the discharges with increased magnetic field and plasma current, the regression fit of neutral particle analyzer flux drop in energy channel close to neutral beam energy on relative eigenmode magnitude, the value of magnetic field and plasma current was analyzed. The power of flux drop dependence on TAE magnitude was found to be ~0.5 and inverse proportional on the value of product of magnetic field and plasma current, which is highly likely is determined only by plasma current due to weak dependence on magnetic field. The result obtained indicates that fast ion losses in Globus-M2, stimulated by toroidal Alfven eigenmodes are mostly determined by the shift of passing orbits to the plasma edge. With the increase of plasma current and magnetic field, neutron flux drops arising in the moments of toroidal mode bursts have also decreased.

Distinctive features of the structure of current sheets formed in plasma in three-dimensional magnetic configurations with an X line (a review)

A review is presented on experimental results related to investigation of distinctive features of the structure and evolution of plasma current sheets formed in three dimensional (3D) magnetic configurations with an X line, in the presence of a longitudinal magnetic field component (guide field) directed along the X line. It is shown that formation of a plasma current sheet results in enhancement of the guide field within the sheet. The excessive guide field is maintained by plasma currents that flow in the transverse plane relative to the main current in the sheet. As a result, the structure of the currents becomes three-dimensional. Increasing the initial value of the guide field brings about a decrease of compression into the sheet of both the electric current and plasma. This effect is caused by changing the pres- sure balance in the sheet when an excessive guide field appears in it. Deformation of plasma current sheets in 3D magnetic configurations, namely, an appearance of asymmetric and tilted sheets, results from excitation of the Hall currents and their interaction with the guide field. It is shown that the formation of current sheets in 3D magnetic configurations with an X line is possible in a relatively wide, but limited range of initial conditions

RADIATION LOSS DETERMINATION AT COLLISION OF ELECTRONS WITH LECTRONEGATIVE ATOMS AND IONS IN PLASMA CURRENT SWITCH DISCHARGES. PART II

Specific radiation-loss power values have been determined for a variety of electronegative elements (C, O, F, Cl) as functions of electron temperature and impurity particle concentration. The maximum radiation-loss power level has been registered for chlorine (≤770 W/cm3) at an electron/impurity density of 1014 cm-3. The minimum radiation-loss power level for the other three elements lies in the range from 0.4 to 2 W/cm3. Considerable radiation losses due to the presence of electronegative elements in the interelectrode discharge may lead to its destabilization, to the change in the plasma parameters (ne, Te), and eventually, to degradation of the current-voltage characteristic of the plasma current switch.

Evolution of an arched magnetized laboratory plasma in a sheared magnetic field

Arched magnetized structures are a common occurrence in space and laboratory plasmas. Results from a laboratory experiment on spatio-temporal evolution of an arched magnetized plasma ( $\beta \approx 10^{-3}$ , Lundquist number $\approx 10^{4}$ , plasma radius/ion gyroradius $\approx 20$ ) in a sheared magnetic configuration are presented. The experiment is designed to model conditions relevant to the formation and destabilization of similar structures in the solar atmosphere. The magnitude of a nearly horizontal overlying magnetic field was varied to study its effects on the writhe and twist of the arched plasma. In addition, the direction of the guiding magnetic field along the arch was varied to investigate its role in the formation of either forward- or reverse-S shaped plasma structures. The electrical current in the arched plasma was well below the current required to make it kink unstable. A significant increase in the writhe of the arched plasma was observed with larger magnitudes of overlying magnetic field. A forward-S shaped arched plasma was observed for a guiding magnetic field oriented nearly antiparallel to the initial arched plasma current, while the parallel orientation yielded the reverse-S shaped arched plasma.

Identifying the microtearing modes in the pedestal of DIII-D H-modes using gyrokinetic simulations

Recent evidence points toward the microtearing mode (MTM) as an important fluctuation in the H-mode pedestal for anomalous electron heat transport. A study of the instabilities in the pedestal region carried out using gyrokinetic simulations to model an ELMy H-mode DIII-D discharge (USN configuration, 1.4 MA plasma current, and 3 MW heating power) is presented. The simulations produce MTMs, identified by predominantly electromagnetic heat flux, small particle flux, and a substantial degree of tearing parity. The magnetic spectrogram from Mirnov coils exhibits three distinct frequency bands---two narrow bands at lower frequency ($\sim$35-55 kHz and $\sim$70-105 kHz) and a broader band at higher frequency ($\sim$300-500 kHz). Global linear GENE simulations produce MTMs that are centered at the peak of the $\omega_*$ profile and correspond closely with the bands in the spectrogram. The three distinctive frequency bands can be understood from the basic physical mechanisms underlying the instabilities. For example (i) instability of certain toroidal mode numbers (n) is controlled by the alignment of their rational surfaces with the peak in the $\omega^*$ profile, and (ii) MTM instabilities in the lower n bands are the conventional collisional slab MTM, whereas the higher n band depends on curvature drive. While many features of the modes can be captured with the local approximation, a global treatment is necessary to quantitatively reproduce the detailed band gaps of the low-n fluctuations. Notably, the transport signatures of the MTM are consistent with careful edge modeling by SOLPS.

The ITB dynamics controlled by internal kink modes on HL-2A tokamak

The active control of internal transport barriers (ITBs) is an important issue to achieve high performance plasma in a fusion reactor. A critical challenge of ITB control is to increase the ITB position. The ITBs with internal kink modes (IKMs), such as fishbone instability and long-live mode (LLM) with mode number of m/n = 1/1 are frequently observed on HL-2A tokamak in neutral beam heated discharges. The correlation of fishbone instability/LLM with ITBs is analyzed in order to extend the ITB radius. It has been revealed that fishbone instability and LLM are often excited after the ITB formation. Therefore, fishbone instability and LLM play no role in triggering ITBs on HL-2A tokamak. On the other hand, they may slow down the outward radial expansion and then shrink the foot position of ITB, and damp the gradient growth of ion temperature and rotation velocity. Since the perturbation of LLM is weaker than that of fishbone instability, the shrinking effect of ITB foot and braking effect on gradient growth are slighter than those of fishbone instability. Compared with the LLM, fishbone instability routinely appears in plasmas with lower density, higher heating power and lower plasma current. In addition, large ITBs without IKMs are also discussed on HL-2A tokamak. The large ITB is the largest one, the fishbone ITB is the strongest one and the LLM ITB is the widest one in three ITBs, where the ‘large’, ‘strong’ and ‘wide’ qualifications correspond to ITB position ρITB, the normalized temperature gradient R/LT, and its width W/a. Therefore, the large ITB position may be obtained if the IKMs are effectively controlled in a tokamak.