NSTX operates at low aspect ratio (R/a∼1.3) and high beta (up to 40%), allowing tests of global confinement and local transport properties that have been established from higher aspect ratio devices. NSTX plasmas are heated by up to 7 MW of deuterium neutral beams with preferential electron heating as expected for ITER. Confinement scaling studies indicate a strong B T dependence, with a current dependence that is weaker than that observed at higher aspect ratio. Dimensionless scaling experiments indicate a strong increase of confinement with decreasing collisionality and a weak degradation with beta. The increase of confinement with B T is due to reduced transport in the electron channel, while the improvement with plasma current is due to reduced transport in the ion channel related to the decrease in the neoclassical transport level. Improved electron confinement has been observed in plasmas with strong reversed magnetic shear, showing the existence of an electron internal transport barrier (eITB). The development of the eITB may be associated with a reduction in the growth of microtearing modes in the plasma core. Perturbative studies show that while L-mode plasmas with reversed magnetic shear and an eITB exhibit slow changes of L T e across the profile after the pellet injection, H-mode plasmas with a monotonic q-profile and no eITB show no change in this parameter after pellet injection, indicating the existence of a critical gradient that may be related to the q-profile. Both linear and non-linear simulations indicate the potential importance of ETG modes at the lowest B T . Localized measurements of high-k fluctuations exhibit a sharp decrease in signal amplitude levels across the L-H transition, associated with a decrease in both ion and electron transport, and a decrease in calculated linear microinstability growth rates across a wide k-range, from the ITG/TEM regime up to the ETG regime.

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A wide variety of fast ion driven instabilities are excited during neutral beam injection ͑NBI͒ in the National Spherical Torus Experiment ͑NSTX͒ ͓Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 ͑2000͔͒ due to the large ratio of fast ion velocity to Alfvén velocity, V fast / V Alfvén , and high fast ion beta. The ratio V fast / V Alfvén in ITER ͓Nucl. Fusion 39, 2137 ͑1999͔͒ and NSTX is comparable. The modes can be divided into three categories: chirping energetic particle modes ͑EPM͒ in the frequency range 0 to 120 kHz, the toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes ͑TAE͒ with a frequency range of 50 kHz to 200 kHz, and the compressional and global Alfvén eigenmodes ͑CAE and GAE, respectively͒ between 300 kHz and the ion cyclotron frequency. Fast ion driven modes are of particular interest because of their potential to cause substantial fast ion losses. In all regimes of NBI heated operation we see transient neutron rate drops, correlated with bursts of TAE or fishbone-like EPMs. The fast ion loss events are predominantly correlated with the EPMs, although losses are also seen with bursts of multiple, large amplitude TAE. The latter is of particular significance for ITER; the transport of fast ions from the expected resonance overlap in phase space of a "sea" of large amplitude TAE is the kind of physics expected in ITER. The internal structure and amplitude of the TAE and EPMs has been measured with quadrature reflectometry and soft x-ray cameras. The TAE bursts have internal amplitudes of ñ / n = 1% and toroidal mode numbers 2 Ͻ n Ͻ 7. The EPMs are core localized, kink-like modes similar to the fishbones in conventional aspect ratio tokamaks. Unlike the fishbones, the EPMs can be present with q͑0͒ Ͼ 1 and can have a toroidal mode number n Ͼ 1. The range of the frequency chirp can be quite large and the resonance can be through a fishbone-like precessional drift resonance, or through a bounce resonance.

Off-axis sawteeth are often observed in reversed magnetic shear plasmas when the minimum safety factor q is near or below 2. Fluctuations with m/n = 2/1 (m and n are the poloidal and toroidal mode numbers) appear before and after the crashes. Detailed comparison has been made between the measured Te profile evolution during the crash and a nonlinear numerical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulation. The good agreement between the observation and simulation indicates that the off-axis sawteeth are due to a dou ble-tearing magnetic reconnection process.

Neutral-beam-heated plasmas in TFTR show evidence of substantial non-Ohmically driven toroidal current, even for balanced beam momentum input. The observations are inconsistent with calculations including only Ohmic and beam-driven currents, and presently can only be matched by models including the neoclassical bootstrap current.

Simultaneous profile measurements of the toroidal rotation speed and ion temperature during unbalanced neutral-beam injection in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor show that the ion momentum and thermal diffusivities are comparable in magnitude (;t>« 1.5^/) and vary similarly with plasma current and minor radius. The correlation of %$ and Xi is consistent with anomalous transport driven by collisionless electrostatic microinstabilities including ion-temperature-gradient-driven modes (77/ modes) and collisionless trapped-electron modes.

The relaxation of core transport barriers in TFTR Enhanced Reversed Shear plasmas has been studied by varying the radial electric field using different applied torques from neutral beam injection. Transport rates and fluctuations remain low over a wide range of radial electric field shear, but increase when the local ExB shearing rates are driven below a threshold comparable to the fastest linear growth rates of the dominant instabilities. Shafranov-shift-induced stabilization alone is not able to sustain enhanced confinement.

Microwave-based diagnostics have found broad application in magnetic fusion plasma diagnostics and are expected to be widely employed in future burning plasma experiments (BPXs