M. R. Tournianski P. G. Carolan R. J. Akers
Operating a microchannel plate ( MCP ) in saturated mode provides a simple photon and particle counting detector. However, there is a finite recovery time after individual events during which individual microchannels no longer respond, reducing the overall sensitivity. At continuous high flux levels, the corrections from measured to true flux becom…
PublishedA. Patel P. G. Carolan N. J. Conway R. J. Akers
A bremsstrahlung diagnostic has been deployed on the Mega Ampere Spherical Tokamak ( MAST ) , with matrix viewing of the full plasma cross section in a narrow region of the continuum free of spectral lines. An uncooled CCD detector is used to provide 100 Hz 128 3 128 matrix viewing of the plasma emissivity which is spectrally selected using an inte…
PublishedA. Patel P. G. Carolan N. J. Conway C. A. Bunting R. J. Akers
Spectral imaging diagnostics that view the full plasma cross section are used on MAST with sensor resolutions and frame rates of up to 256 x 512 chords and 130 Hz, respectively. The incident and solid angles of filter illumination are fully controllable. Image splitting and spectral selection with separate filters are performed in the telecentric r…
PublishedA. Kirk H. R.Wilson G. F. Counsell R. Akers E. Arends S. C. Cowley J. Dowling B. Lloyd M. Price M.Walsh Mast Team
This Letter provides information on the spatial and temporal structure of periodic eruptions observed in magnetically confined laboratory fusion plasmas, called edge-localized modes (ELMs), and highlights similarities with solar eruptions. Taken together, the observations presented in this Letter provide strong evidence for ELMs being associated wi…
PublishedD.J. Applegate C.M. Roach S.C. Cowley W.D. Dorland N. Joiner R.J. Akers N.J. Conway A.R. Field A. Patel M. Valovic M.J. Walsh
Gyrokinetic microstability analyses, with and without electromagnetic effects, are presented for a spherical tokamak plasma equilibrium closely resembling that from a high confinement mode ( H mode ) discharge in the mega-ampere spherical tokamak ( MAST ) [ A. Sykes et al. , Nucl. Fusion 41 , 1423 ( 2001 )] . Electrostatic ion temperature gradient …
PublishedP. Helander L.-G. Eriksson R. J. Akers C. Byrom C.G. Gimblett M. R. Tournianski
Spontaneous acceleration of ions to suprathermal energies is observed during magnetic reconnection in the Mega-Ampere Spherical Tokamak (MAST). A high-energy tail is observed in the iondistribution function following each internal reconnection event in Ohmic discharges. This phenomenon is explained in terms of runaway ion acceleration in the electr…
PublishedR. J. Buttery O. Sauter R. Akers M. Gryaznevich R. Martin C. D. Warrick H. R. Wilson The Mast Team
Results from MAST provide a first test of neoclassical tearing mode physics in the spherical tokamak (ST). The mode accounts for the main performance limit in conventional tokamaks. Its behavior in the ST is remarkably well described by existing theoretical models, although it is more readily seeded by sawtooth events in these scenarios. Modeling c…
PublishedR. J. Akers G. F. Counsell A. Sykes L. C. Appel E. R. Arends C. Byrom P. G. Carolan N. J. Conway G. Cunningham A. Dnestrovskij Yu.N. Dnestrovskij A. R. Field S. J. Fielding M. Gryaznevich P. Helander A. Kirk S. Korsholm R. Martin H. Meye
H -mode plasmas have been achieved on the MAST spherical tokamak at input power considerably higher than predicted by conventional threshold scalings. Following L - H transition, a clear improvement in energy confinement is obtained, exceeding recent international scalings even at densities approaching the Greenwald density limit. Transition is acc…
PublishedCanh N. Nguyen Glenn Bateman Arnold H. Kritz Robert Akers Calum Byrom et al.
Integrated predictive modeling simulations are carried out using the BALDUR transport code [Singer et al. , Comput. Phys. Commun. 49 , 275 (1982)] for high confinement mode (H-mode) and low confinement mode (L-mode) discharges in the Mega-Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) [Sykes et al. , Phys. Plasmas 8 , 2101 (2001)]. Simulation results, obtained using…
PublishedR. J. Akers J. W. Ahn L. C. Appel E. R. Arends K. B. Axon et al.
Spontaneous transitions from the low ‘‘L-mode’’ to high ‘‘H-mode’’ of tokamak plasma confinement, first observed during neutral beam heating experiments on ASDEX, are now routinely achieved in many tokamak experiments. The H-mode regime is attractive as it offers the possibility of enhanced confinement, and thus a route towards a mo…
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