After completing the main construction phase of Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) and successfully commissioning the device, first plasma operation started at the end of 2015. Integral commissioning of plasma start-up and operation using electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and an extensive set of plasma diagnostics have been completed, allowing initial physics studies during the first operational campaign. Both in helium and hydrogen, plasma breakdown was easily achieved. Gaining experience with plasma vessel conditioning, discharge lengths could be extended gradually. Eventually, discharges lasted up to 6 s, reaching an injected energy of 4 MJ, which is twice the limit originally agreed for the limiter configuration employed during the first operational campaign. At power levels of 4 MW central electron densities reached 3 × 1019 m−3, central electron temperatures reached values of 7 keV and ion temperatures reached just above 2 keV. Important physics studies during this first operational phase include a first assessment of power balance and energy confinement, ECRH power deposition experiments, 2nd harmonic O-mode ECRH using multi-pass absorption, and current drive experiments using electron cyclotron current drive. As in many plasma discharges the electron temperature exceeds the ion temperature significantly, these plasmas are governed by core electron root confinement showing a strong positive electric field in the plasma centre.
In W 7-AS the H mode has been observed for the first time in a currentless stellarator plasma. H modes are achieved with 0.4 MW electron cyclotron resonance heating at 140 GHz at high density. The H phases display all characteristics known from tokamak H modes including edge localized modes (ELMs). The achievement of the H mode in a shear-free stellarator without toroidal current has consequences on //-mode transition and ELM theories.
Parameter scans in density, heating power and isotope mass have been carried out in W7-AS. ECRH at a frequency of 140 GHz has allowed to study the density scaling of the energy confinement time of ECRH plasmas up to densities of 1020 m−3. In power scans it has been tried to relate the power degradation of the energy confinement to a local plasma parameter. Transport analyses using power balance an heat wave techniques indicate that the transport coefficient does not depend on the electron temperature or related parameters. This observation can be reconciled with power degradation if the transport coefficient is formally allowed to vary with changes in the heating power on a faster than the diffusive time scale. Such a transport process describes also the observations in the dynamic phases following large changes in the heating power.
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