A numerical modeling of current profile modification by lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) using a fullwave/Fokker-Planck simulation code is presented. A MHD stable LHCD discharge on Alcator C-Mod was analyzed, and the current profile from full wave simulations was found to show better agreement with the experiment than a ray-tracing code. Comparison of full wave and ray-tracing simulation shows that, although ray-tracing can reproduce the stochastic wave spectrum broadening, the full wave calculation predicts even wider spectrum broadening, and the wave spectrum fills all of the kinematically allowed domain. This is the first demonstration of LHCD current profile modeling using a full wave simulation code in a multi-pass absorption regime, showing the clear impact of full wave effects on the LHCD driven current profile.

We report a discovery of a fusion plasma regime suitable for commercial fusion reactor where the ion temperature was sustained above 100 million degree about 20 s for the rst time. Nuclear fusion as a promising technology for replacing carbon-dependent energy sources has currently many issues to be resolved to enable its large-scale use as a sustainable energy source. State-of-the-art fusion reactors cannot yet achieve the high levels of fusion performance, high temperature, and absence of instabilities required for steady-state operation for a long period of time on the order of hundreds of seconds. This is a pressing challenge within the eld, as the development of methods that would enable such capabilities is essential for the successful construction of commercial fusion reactor. Here, a new plasma con nement regime called fast ion roled enhancement (FIRE) mode is presented. This mode is realized at Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) and subsequently characterized to show that it meets most of the requirements for fusion reactor commercialization. Through a comparison to other well-known plasma con nement regimes, the favourable properties of FIRE mode are further elucidated and concluded that the novelty lies in the high fraction of fast ions, which acts to stabilize turbulence and achieve steady-state operation for up to 20 s by self-organization. We propose this mode as a promising path towards commercial fusion reactors.

Lower hybrid (LH) current drive experiments have been carried out on the Alcator C-Mod tokamak [I. H. Hutchinson et al., Phys. Plasmas 1, 1511 (1994)] using a radio-frequency system at 4.6GHz. Up to 900kW of LH power has been coupled and driven LH currents have been inferred from magnetic measurements by extrapolating to zero loop voltage, yielding an efficiency of neILHR0∕PLH≈2.5±0.2×1019(A∕W∕m2). We have simulated the LH current drive in these discharges using the combined ray tracing/three-dimensional (r,v⊥,v∥) Fokker–Planck code GENRAY-CQL3D (R. W. Harvey and M. McCoy, in Proceedings of the IAEA Technical Committee Meeting on Simulation and Modeling of Thermonuclear Plasmas, Montreal, Canada, 1992) and found similar current drive efficiencies. The simulated profiles of current density from CQL3D, including both ohmic plus LH drive have been found to be in good agreement with the measured current density from a motional Stark effect diagnostic. Measurements of nonthermal x-ray emission confirm the presence of a significant fast electron population and the three-dimensional (r,v⊥,v∥) electron distribution function from CQL3D has been used in a synthetic diagnostic code to simulate the measured hard x-ray data.

A decade-long operation of the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) has contributed significantly to the operation of superconducting tokamak devices and the advancement of tokamak physics which will be beneficial for the ITER and K-DEMO programs. Even with limited heating capability, various conventional as well as new operating regimes have been explored and have achieved improved performance. As examples, a long pulse high-confinement mode operation with and without an edge-localized mode (ELM) crash was well over 70 and 30 s, respectively. The unique capabilities of KSTAR allowed it to improve the capability of controlling harmful instabilities, and they have been instrumental in uncovering much new physics. The highlights are that the L/H transition threshold power is sensitive to the resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) and insensitive to non-resonant magnetic perturbation. Co-Ip offset rotation dominated by an electron channel predicted by general neoclassical toroidal viscosity theory was confirmed. Improved heat dispersal in a divertor system using three rows of rotating RMP was demonstrated and predictive control of the ELM-crash with a priori modeling was successfully tested. In magnetohydrodynamic physics, validation of the full reconnection model (i.e. q0  >  1 right after the sawtooth crash) and self-consistent validation of the anisotropic distribution of turbulence amplitude and flow in the presence of the 2/1 island with theoretical models were achieved. The turbulence amplitude induced by RMP was linearly increased with the slow RMP coil current ramp-up time (i.e. the magnetic diffusion time scale). The Dα spikes (i.e. ELM-crash amplitude) was linearly decreased with the turbulence amplitude and not correlated with the perpendicular electron flow. In the turbulence area, a non-diffusive ‘avalanche’ transport event and the role of a quiescent coherent mode in confinement were studied. To accommodate the anticipation of a higher performance of the KSTAR plasmas with the increased heating powers, a new divertor/internal interface with a full active cooling system will be implemented after a full test of the new heating (neutral beam injection II and electron cyclotron heating) and current drive (CD) (Helicon and lower hybrid CD) systems. An upgrade plan for the internal hardware, heating systems and efficient CD system may allow for a long pulse operation of higher performance plasmas at βN  >  3.0 with f bs ~ 0.5 and Ti  >  10 keV.

Abstract. This paper summarizes highlights of research results from the Alcator C-Mod tokamak covering the period 2006 through 2008. Active flow drive, using mode converted waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF), has been observed for the first time in a tokamak plasma, using a mix of D and 3He ion species; toroidal and poloidal flows are driven near the location of the mode conversion layer. ICRF induced edge sheaths are implicated in both the erosion of thin boron coatings and the generation of metallic impurities. Lower Hybrid RF has been used for efficient current drive, current profile modification, and toroidal flow drive. In addition, LHRF has been used to modify the H-mode pedestal, increasing temperature, decreasing density, and lowering the pedestal collisionality. Studies of hydrogen isotope retention in solid metallic plasma facing components reveal significantly higher retention than expected from ex-situ laboratory studies; a model to explain the results, based on plasma/neutral induced lattice damage has been developed and tested. During gaspuff mitigation of disruptions, induced MHD causes the magnetic field to become stochastic, resulting in reduction of halo currents, spreading of plasma power loading, and loss of run-away electrons before they cause damage. Detailed pedestal rotation profile measurements have been used to infer ER profiles, and correlation with global H-mode confinement. An improved L-mode regime, obtained at q 95 ≤3 with ion drift away from the active x-point, shows very good confinement without a strong density pedestal, and no evidence of particle or impurity accumulation without the need for ELMs or any other edge density regulation mechanism.

Abstract.On the Alcator C-Mod tokamak, lower hybrid current drive (LHCD) is being used to modify the current profile with the aim of obtaining advanced tokamak (AT) performance in plasmas with parameters similar to those that would be required on ITER. To date, power levels in excess of 1 MW at a frequency of 4.6 GHz have been coupled into a variety of plasmas. Experiments have established that LHCD on C-Mod behaves globally as predicted by theory. Bulk current drive efficiencies, n 20 I lh R/P lh ~ 0.25, inferred from magnetics and MSE are in line with theory. Quantitative comparisons between local measurements, MSE, ECE and hard x-ray bremsstrahlung, and theory/simulation using the GENRAY, TORIC-LH CQL3D and TSC-LSC codes have been performed. These comparisons have demonstrated the off-axis localization of the current drive, its magnitude and location dependence on the launched n || spectrum, and the use of LHCD during the current ramp to save volt-seconds and delay the peaking of the current profile. Broadening of the x-ray emission profile during ICRF heating indicates that the current drive location can be controlled by the electron temperature, as expected. In addition, an alteration in the plasma toroidal rotation profile during LHCD has been observed with a significant rotation in the counter current direction. Notably, the rotation is accompanied by peaking of the density and temperature profiles on a current diffusion time scale inside of the half radius where the LH absorption is taking place. PACS: 52.50.Sw, 52.55.Wq IntroductionThe Alcator C-Mod program has as one of its goals the aim of producing advanced tokamak (AT) discharges. In order to provide the current profile control required for obtaining reduced or reverse shear a lower hybrid (LH) rf power system [1] has been installed on the tokamak. One of the advantages of exploring the applicability of LH current drive on Alcator C-Mod is the equivalence of many of the important parameters, such as plasma density, magnetic field, and rf frequency to those required for a reactor, and in particular ITER. In addition, C-Mod uses heating sources that provide low torque to the plasma, as would be true for a reactor, and the time constants involved allow for relaxation of the relevant profiles. Initial experiments [2,3] have demonstrated that the system behaves as expected with bulk current drive efficiencies η = n 20 I lh R/P lh ~ 0.25 in line with theory and expectations from previous experiments. Recent work, reported in this paper, concentrates on detailed measurements of the spatial location of the driven current, the role of fast electron diffusion in spreading the current and other effects of applying LH power to the plasma. In addition, to extrapolate the application of LHCD for use in future devices a program of model development and validation is underway. The plan of this paper is as follows. The local measurements of fast electrons and CD derived from hard x-ray measurements and MSE along with comparisons to modeling will be

Since the first H-mode discharges in 2010, the duration of the H-mode state has been extended and a significantly wider operational window of plasma parameters has been attained. Using a second neutral beam (NB) source and improved tuning of equilibrium configuration with real-time plasma control, a stored energy of W tot ∼ 450 kJ has been achieved with a corresponding energy confinement time of τ E ∼ 163 ms. Recent discharges, produced in the fall of 2012, have reached plasma β N up to 2.9 and surpassed the n = 1 ideal no-wall stability limit computed for H-mode pressure profiles, which is one of the key threshold parameters defining advanced tokamak operation. Typical H-mode discharges were operated with a plasma current of 600 kA at a toroidal magnetic field B T = 2 T. L-H transitions were obtained with 0.8-3.0 MW of NB injection power in both single-and double-null configurations, with H-mode durations up to ∼15 s at 600 kA of plasma current. The measured power threshold as a function of lineaveraged density showed a roll-over with a minimum value of ∼0.8 MW at ne ∼ 2×10 19 m −3 . Several edge-localized mode (ELM) control techniques during H-mode were examined with successful results including resonant magnetic perturbation, supersonic molecular beam injection (SMBI), vertical jogging and electron cyclotron current drive injection into the pedestal region. We observed various ELM responses, i.e. suppression or mitigation, depending on the relative phase of in-vessel control coil currents. In particular, with the 90 • phase of the n = 1 RMP as the most resonant configuration, a complete suppression of type-I ELMs was demonstrated. In addition, fast vertical jogging of the plasma column was also observed to be effective in ELM pace-making. SMBI-mitigated ELMs, a state of mitigated ELMs, were sustained for a few tens of ELM periods. A simple cellular automata ('sand-pile') model predicted that shallow deposition near the pedestal foot induced small-sized high-frequency ELMs, leading to the mitigation of large ELMs. In addition to the ELM control experiments, various physics topics were explored focusing on ITER-relevant physics issues such as the alteration of toroidal rotation caused by both electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) and externally applied 3D fields, and the observed rotation drop by ECRH in NB-heated plasmas was investigated in terms of either a reversal of the turbulence-driven residual stress due to the transition of ion temperature gradient to trapped electron mode turbulence or neoclassical toroidal viscosity (NTV) torque by the internal kink mode. The suppression of runaway electrons using massive gas injection of deuterium showed that runaway electrons were avoided only below 3 T in KSTAR. Operation in 2013 is expected to routinely exceed the n = 1 ideal MHD no-wall stability boundary in the long-pulse H-mode ( 10 s) by applying real-time shaping control, enabling n = 1 resistive wall mode active control studies. In addition, intensive works for ELM mitigation, ELM dynamics, toroidal ro...

One of the important rotational resonances in nonaxisymmetric neoclassical transport has been experimentally validated in the KSTAR tokamak by applying highly nonresonant n=1 magnetic perturbations to rapidly rotating plasmas. These so-called bounce-harmonic resonances are expected to occur in the presence of magnetic braking perturbations when the toroidal rotation is fast enough to resonate with periodic parallel motions of trapped particles. The predicted and observed resonant peak along with the toroidal rotation implies that the toroidal rotation in tokamaks can be controlled naturally in favorable conditions to stability, using nonaxisymmetric magnetic perturbations.