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Register a new userOblique electron-cyclotron-emission radial and phase detector of rotating magnetic islands applied to alignment and modulation of electron-cyclotron-current-drive for neoclassical tearing mode stabilization
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A two channel oblique electron cyclotron emission (ECE) radiometer was installed on the DIII-D tokamak and interfaced to 4 gyrotrons. Oblique ECE was used to toroidally and radially localize rotating magnetic islands and so assist their electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) stabilization. In particular, after manipulations operated by the interfacing analogue circuit, the oblique ECE signals directly modulated the current drive in synch with the island rotation and in phase with the island O-point, for a more efficient stabilization. Apart from the different toroidal location, the diagnostic view is identical to the ECCD launch direction,which greatly simplified the real-time use of the signals. In fact, a simple toroidal extrapolation was sufficient to lock the modulation to the O-point phase. This was accomplished by a specially designed phase shifter of nearly flat response over the 1-7kHz range. Moreover, correlation analysis of two channels slightly above and below the ECCD frequency allowed checking the radial alignment to the island, based on the fact that for satisfactory alignment the two signals are out of phase.
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13MW of electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) power deposited inside the q = 1 surface is likely to reduce the sawtooth period in ITER baseline scenario below the level empirically predicted to trigger neo-classical tearing modes (NTMs). However, since the ECCD control scheme is solely predicated upon changing the local magnetic shear, it is prudent to plan to use a complementary scheme which directly decreases the potential energy of the kink mode in order to reduce the sawtooth period. In the event that the natural sawtooth period is longer than expected, due to enhanced alpha particle stabilisation for instance, this ancillary sawtooth control can be provided from > 10MW of ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) power with a resonance just inside the q = 1 surface. Both ECCD and ICRH control schemes would benefit greatly from active feedback of the deposition with respect to the rational surface. If the q = 1 surface can be maintained closer to the magnetic axis, the efficacy of ECCD and ICRH schemes significantly increases, the negative effect on the fusion gain is reduced, and off-axis negative-ion neutral beam injection (NNBI) can also be considered for sawtooth control. Consequently, schemes to reduce the q = 1 radius are highly desirable, such as early heating to delay the current penetration and, of course, active sawtooth destabilisation to mediate small frequent sawteeth and retain a small q = 1 radius.
A new synergy mechanism between Ohkawa current drive (OKCD) of electron cyclotron (EC) waves and lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) is discovered and discussed. And the methodology to achieve this synergy effect is also introduced. Improvement of OKCD efficiency can be achieved up to a factor of ~ 2.5 in far off-axis radial region (r{ho} > 0.6) of tokamak plasmas. Making EC wave heating the electrons of co-Ip direction and LH wave heating the electrons of counter-Ip direction, the mechanism of this new synergy effect comes from the results of electron trapping and detrapping processes. The OKCD makes the low speed barely passing electrons to be trapped (trapping process), the LHCD pulls some of the high speed barely trapped electrons out of the trapped region in velocity space (detrapping process) and accelerates the detrapped electrons to a higher speed.
The plasma response from an external n = 2 magnetic perturbation field in ASDEX Upgrade has been measured using mainly electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostics and a rigid rotating field. To interpret ECE and ECE-imaging (ECE-I) measurements accurately, forward modeling of the radiation transport has been combined with ray tracing. The measured data is compared to synthetic ECE data generated from a 3D ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equilibrium calculated by VMEC. The measured amplitudes of the helical displacement around the low field side midplane are in reasonable agreement with the one from the synthetic VMEC diagnostics. Both exceed the prediction from the vacuum field calculations and indicate the presence of a kink response at the edge, which amplifies the perturbation. VMEC and MARS-F have been used to calculate the properties of this kink mode. The poloidal mode structure of the magnetic perturbation of this kink mode at the edge peaks at poloidal mode numbers larger than the resonant components |m| > |nq|, whereas the poloidal mode structure of its displacement is almost resonant |m| ~ |nq|. This is expected from ideal MHD in the proximity of rational surfaces. The displacement measured by ECE-I confirms this resonant response.
Sawtooth control using steerable electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) has been demonstrated in ASDEX Upgrade plasmas with a significant population of energetic ions in the plasma core and long uncontrolled sawtooth periods. The sawtooth period is found to be minimised when the ECCD resonance is swept to just inside the q = 1 surface. By utilising ECCD inside q = 1 for sawtooth control, it is possible to avoid the triggering of neoclassical tearing modes, even at significnatly higher pressure than anticipated in the ITER baseline scenario. Operation at 25% higher normalised pressure has been achieved when only modest ECCD power is used for sawtooth control compared to identical discharges without sawtooth control when neo-classical tearing modes are triggered by the sawteeth. Modelling suggests that the destabilisation arising from the change in the local magnetic shear caused by the ECCD is able to compete with the stabilising influence of the energetic particles inside the q = 1 surface.
Direct evidence of micro-turbulence effect on the onset of neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) is reported for the first time in this letter. A puzzling positive correlation between critical width of seed island of NTM and normalized plasma pressure beta_p is first observed employing a novel method for clearly separating the processes of seed island and the onset of NTM in the EAST tokamak. Different from the methods developed before, the width of the seed island is well controlled by slowly ramping up the current in resonant magnetic perturbation coils. It is revealed that the positive correlation is mainly attributed to the enhancement of perpendicular transport by micro-turbulence, which overcomes the destabilizing effect of beta_p on the onset of NTM. Reduced magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) modeling well reproduced the two states of nonlinear bifurcations observed in this experiment by including the finite transport effect. This result provides a new route for understanding multi-scale interaction in plasma physics.
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