T. Edlington R. Martin T. Pinfold
The mega-ampere spherical tokamak (MAST) experiment is a new, large, low aspect ratio device operating its first experimental physics campaign. Designed to study a wide variety of plasma shapes with up to 2 MA of plasma current with an aspect ratio down to 1.3, the poloidal field (PF) coils used for plasma formation, equilibrium and shaping are ins…
PublishedN. J. Peacock R. Barnsley M. G. O’Mullane M. R. Tarbutt D. Crosby et al.
The equilibrium state in tokamak core plasmas has been studied using the relative intensities of resonance x-ray lines. A full spatial analysis involves comparison of the line intensities with ion diffusion calculations, including relevant atomic rates. A zero-dimensional model using a global ion loss rate approximation has also been demonstrated b…
PublishedA. Sykes R. J. Akers L. C. Appel P. G. Carolan J.W. Connor N. J. Conway G. F. Counsell A. Dnestrovskij Yu.N. Dnestrovskij M. Gryaznevich P. Helander M. P. S. Nightingale C. Ribeiro C. M. Roach M. Tournianski M. J. Walsh H. R. Wilson The S
H -mode operation has been achieved in high current I p . 200 kA plasmas in the START spherical tokamak for both neutral-beam-injection-heated and Ohmic discharges. The transition to H mode features the development of well-defined edge pedestals in density and temperature, which signifies the formation of an edge-transport barrier, and associated e…
PublishedR. V. Budny D. R. Ernst T. S. Hahm D. C. McCune J. P. Christiansen et al.
The edge-localized, high-confinement mode regime is of interest for future Tokamak reactors since high performance has been sustained for long durations. Experiments in the Joint European Tokamak [M. Keilhacker et al. , Nuclear Fusion 39 , 209 (1999)] have studied this regime using scans with the toroidal field and plasma current varied together in…
PublishedR. A. Cairns C. N. Lashmore-Davies
Electron Bernstein waves are analyzed as possible candidates for heating spherical tokamaks. An inhomogeneous plane slab model of the plasma with a sheared magnetic field is used to calculate the linear conversion of the ordinary mode (O-mode) to the extraordinary mode (X-mode). A formula for the fraction of the incident O-mode energy which is conv…
PublishedH. R. Wilson R. L. Miller
The peeling mode restricts access to the second stability region of the ideal ballooning mode at the tokamak plasma edge. Using a two-dimensional, high toroidal mode number eigenmode code employing a model tokamak equilibrium, it is shown that a window to second stability exists for a sufficiently deep magnetic well. The different mode structures o…
PublishedH. R. Wilson J. W. Connor A. R. Field S. J. Fielding R. L. Miller et al.
The ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability of the tokamak edge is analyzed, with particular emphasis on radially localized instabilities; it is proposed that these are responsible for edge pressure gradient limits and edge localized modes (ELMS). Data and stability calculations from DIII-D [to appear in Proceedings of the 16th International Conf…
PublishedPeter J. Catto P. Helander J. W. Connor R. D. Hazeltine
The edge plasma of a tokamak is affected by atomic physics processes and can have density and temperature variations along the magnetic field that strongly modify edge transport. A closed system of equations in the Pfirsch–Schluter regime is presented that can be solved for the radial and poloidal variation of the plasma density, electron and ion…
PublishedO. Sauter R. J. La Haye Z. Chang D. A. Gates Y. Kamada et al.
The maximum normalized beta achieved in long-pulse tokamak discharges at low collisionality falls significantly below both that observed in short pulse discharges and that predicted by the ideal MHD theory. Recent long-pulse experiments, in particular those simulating the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) [M. Rosenbluth et al.…
PublishedR. Barnsley A. Abbey J. Dunn S. Lea N. J. Peacock
This spectrometer was designed to give access to a wide range of Bragg angles and crystal focal lengths while using the Rowland circle radius as a free parameter. Stability is achieved using a rigid beam or “Rowland chord,” which provides a reference axis for all the critical alignments, the chord length being variable between about 0.2 and 5 m…
Published