The research program of the TCV tokamak ranges from conventional to advanced-tokamak scenarios and alternative divertor configurations, to exploratory plasmas driven by theoretical insight, exploiting the device’s unique shaping capabilities. Disruption avoidance by real-time locked mode prevention or unlocking with electron-cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) was thoroughly documented, using magnetic and radiation triggers. Runaway generation with high-Z noble-gas injection and runaway dissipation by subsequent Ne or Ar injection were studied for model validation. The new 1 MW neutral beam injector has expanded the parameter range, now encompassing ELMy H-modes in an ITER-like shape and nearly non-inductive H-mode discharges sustained by electron cyclotron and neutral beam current drive. In the H-mode, the pedestal pressure increases modestly with nitrogen seeding while fueling moves the density pedestal outwards, but the plasma stored energy is largely uncorrelated to either seeding or fueling. High fueling at high triangularity is key to accessing the attractive small edge-localized mode (type-II) regime. Turbulence is reduced in the core at negative triangularity, consistent with increased confinement and in accord with global gyrokinetic simulations. The geodesic acoustic mode, possibly coupled with avalanche events, has been linked with particle flow to the wall in diverted plasmas. Detachment, scrape-off layer transport, and turbulence were studied in L- and H-modes in both standard and alternative configurations (snowflake, super-X, and beyond). The detachment process is caused by power ‘starvation’ reducing the ionization source, with volume recombination playing only a minor role. Partial detachment in the H-mode is obtained with impurity seeding and has shown little dependence on flux expansion in standard single-null geometry. In the attached L-mode phase, increasing the outer connection length reduces the in–out heat-flow asymmetry. A doublet plasma, featuring an internal X-point, was achieved successfully, and a transport barrier was observed in the mantle just outside the internal separatrix. In the near future variable-configuration baffles and possibly divertor pumping will be introduced to investigate the effect of divertor closure on exhaust and performance, and 3.5 MW ECRH and 1 MW neutral beam injection heating will be added.

We address the problem of recognizing alpha-stable Lévy distribution with Lévy index close to 2 from experimental data. We are interested in the case when the sample size of available data is not large, thus the power law asymptotics of the distribution is not clearly detectable, and the shape of empirical probability density function is close to a Gaussian. We propose a testing procedure combining a simple visual test based on empirical fourth moment with the AndersonDarling and Jarque-Bera statistical tests and we check the efficiency of the method on simulated data. Furthermore, we apply our method to the analysis of turbulent plasma density and potential fluctuations measured in the stellarator type fusion device and demonstrate that the phenomenon of L-H transition occurring in this device is accompanied by the transition from Lévy to Gaussian fluctuation statistics.

In the Uragan‐3M (U‐3M) and Uragan‐2M (U‐2M) torsatrons possibilities and prospects of Alfvén method utilization for wall conditioning, plasma production and heating are studied. In U‐3M the effect of fast ion loss on H‐like mode formation is investigated. In U‐2M the wall conditioning associated with the chemical reactivity of the atomic hydrogen to create volatile substances is used. A compact four‐strap antenna is proposed for Alfvén resonance heating in U‐2M (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Microscopic turbulence properties in the edge of toroidally confined fusion plasmas are studied by comparative analysis of experimental data from seven devices, collected in an international edge turbulence database. The database contains Langmuir probe measurements of fluctuations in the floating potential and ion saturation current across the last closed flux surface. They are used to address statistical properties and particle transport. Universal features of plasma edge turbulence such as an increase in skewness across the scrape-off layer (SOL) as footprints of density blobs are recovered in all devices. Analysis of the correlation lengths and times reveals power law scaling relations with macroscopic drift-wave parameters, albeit weaker than would be expected for drift-wave turbulence. As a result, the turbulent diffusivity scales with the inverse of the magnetic field strength, which is closer to Bohm-like scaling than to gyro-Bohm scaling. Nearly identical scaling relations are determined in the confined plasma edge and the SOL, pointing to a strong connection between drift-wave turbulence in the edge and blobs in the SOL. The contributions of blobs and holes (negative density spikes) to the radial particle transport are analyzed qualitatively with a conditional averaging approach. Blobs are connected to outward transport in the SOL of all devices whereas holes exhibit no uniform propagation pattern.

A forward modeling technique is developed for determining the characteristic features of observed MHD modes from the line-of-sight data of the soft x-ray (SXR) tomography diagnostics in the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) stellarator. In particular, forward modeling is used to evaluate the poloidal mode numbers m, radial location, poloidal rotation direction and ballooning character of the MHD modes. The poloidal mode structures have been modeled by the radially localized Gaussian-shaped emission regions rotating along the magnetic surfaces. In the present study the cases of rigid-shape emission regions and flexible emission regions are modeled. Various mode phase velocity dependences on the magnetic surface position are simulated. The modeled phase dynamics of line-integrated oscillations and the distribution of oscillation amplitudes are compared with the experimental signals of the SXR cameras which observe the plasma at various viewing angles in the poloidal cross-section. Application of this technique enables describing of the 1–50 kHz modes. In particular, in the discharge W7X-PID 20180918.045 three identified branches with the poloidal mode numbers m= 8, m= 10 and m= 11 localized at ρ ≈ 0.3 are rotating in the clockwise poloidal direction. The present paper reports the first application of the forward modeling technique to the data from the SXR diagnostics in W7-X. The high m-modes are identified by forward modeling in W7-X.