I.T. Chapman A. Kirk R.J. Akers C.J. Ham J.R. Harrison J. Hawke Y.Q. Liu K.G. McClements S. Pamela S. Saarelma R. Scannell A.J. Thornton The Mast Team
ELM mitigation has been demonstrated in MAST using resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) with toroidal mode number, n RM P = 2, 3, 4, 6. It has been observed that the mitigated ELM frequency increases with the amplitude of the applied field provided it is above a critical threshold. This threshold value depends on the mode number of the RMP, with …
PublishedO.M. Jones C.A. Michael K.G. McClements N.J. Conway B. Crowley R.J. Akers R.J. Lake S.D. Pinches The Mast Team
Using the recently-installed Fast-Ion Deuterium Alpha (FIDA) spectrometer, the effects of low-frequency (20 - 50 kHz) chirping energetic particle modes with toroidal mode number n = 1 on the NBI-driven fast-ion population in MAST plasmas are considered. Results from the FIDA diagnostic are presented and discussed in the light of the present theoret…
PublishedA. Stanier P. Browning M. Gordovskyy K. G. McClements M. P. Gryaznevich V. S. Lukin
In the merging-compression method of plasma start-up, two flux-ropes with parallel toroidal current are formed around in-vessel poloidal field coils, before merging to form a spherical tokamak plasma. This start-up method, used in the Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST), is studied as a high Lundquist number and low plasma-beta magnetic reconnecti…
PublishedJ. R. Robinson B. Hnat A. Thyagaraja K. G. McClements P. J. Knight et al.
Following recent observations suggesting the presence of the geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) in ohmically heated discharges in the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) [J. R. Robinson et al., Plasma Phys. Controlled Fusion 54, 105007 (2012)], the behaviour of the GAM is studied numerically using the two fluid, global code CENTORI [P. J. Knight et al. Com…
PublishedK. G. McClements M. J. Hole
The transport of injected beam ions due to toroidal magnetic field ripple in the mega-ampere spherical tokamak (MAST) is quantified using a full orbit particle tracking code, with collisional slowing-down and pitch-angle scattering by electrons and bulk ions taken into account. It is shown that the level of ripple losses is generally rather low, al…
PublishedM Romanelli K G McClements J Cross P J Knight A Thyagaraja J Callaghan
Transport analysis of MAST discharges indicates that ion collisional transport is an important loss mechanism in the core of a spherical tokamak. In the strongly-varying equilibrium fields of spherical tokamaks many of the assumptions of drift kinetic and neoclassical theory (e.g. small plasma inverse aspect ratio and low ratio of toroidal Larmor r…
PublishedK. G. McClements & A. Thyagaraja
Axisymmetric plasma equilibria with toroidal flow are investigated using a two-fluid analysis, taking into account the presence of momentum and current drive, together with dissipative effects. The equilibria are described by a set of three equations describing the spatial variation of poloidal magnetic flux, plasma pressure and toroidal magnetic f…
PublishedK. G. McClements M. J. Hole
The effects of poloidal and toroidal flows on tokamak plasma equilibria are examined in the magnetohydrodynamic limit. “Transonic” poloidal flows of the order of the sound speed multiplied by the ratio of poloidal magnetic field to total field can cause the normally elliptic Grad– Shafranov GS equation to become hyperbolic in part of the solu…
PublishedK. G. McClements & R. J. Mckay
Impurity ions with sufficiently high mass in toroidally-rotating tokamak plasmas are deeply trapped by a centrifugal potential well in the outer plasma midplane, with a bounce period that is shorter than both the bounce period of magnetically-trapped ions and the collision time. As a result trace impurity ions can undergo collisional transport at a…
Published