In this paper, experimental observations of spontaneously excited waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequency (ICRF) on JT-60U are described. The fluctuations in ICRF are driven by the presence of non-thermal ion distribution in magnetically confined plasmas. Two types of magnetic fluctuations are detected: one is due to high-energy D ions from neutral beam (NB) injections and the other is due to fusion products (FPs) of 3He and T ions. These fluctuations have been reported as ion cyclotron emissions (ICEs) in the burning plasma experiments on large tokamaks. This paper describes the first measurement of the spatial structures of the excited modes in the poloidal and toroidal directions. It is confirmed by using ICRF antennas as pickup loops that all modes excited spontaneously have magnetic components. The modes due to D ions have zero or a small toroidal wave number k
z
. On the other hand, the measurement of finite k
z
in the modes due to FP ions supports the excitation of the Alfvén waves, which is the possible origin of FP-ICEs. It is also observed that the excited modes due to FP ions (3He and T ions) have different characteristics: driven by different NBs and having different parameter dependences. ICE due to T ions has no harmonics and the value of ω/Ωci is smaller than that due to 3He. Both beam-driven ICEs and FP-ICEs are clearly observed and their spatial structures are obtained on JT-60U.
Low frequency fluctuations of a plasma in the central cell of the GAMMA10 tandem mirror have been observed with electrostatic probes (ESPs) installed at the peripheral region of the plasma. Typical plasma parameters for a hot ion mode operation are ne∼2×1012 cm−3, Ti∼4 keV, Te∼100 eV, B=4 kG, and rp=18 cm. Although the ESP is an effective tool to measure local plasma parameters and fluctuations, it can be damaged with the higher electron temperature. Here, a new visible light detector was introduced, which could measure the plasma fluctuations without contacting the plasma. The obtained results were compared with those of ESPs. It is found that the visible light detector is applicable when the electron temperature becomes much higher in the future experiment.
The formation of eigenmodes with the m = 1 fast Alfvén waves in the ioncyclotron range of frequency are investigated in the axisymmetric central cell of the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror. When the fast waves with frequencies near the fundamental ion-cyclotron frequency have been used for the plasma production, the saturation in the density has been observed. The spatial structure of the excited wave field is calculated in the central cell using a two-dimensional full wave code. The results of numerical analysis indicate that the increase in plasma density depends strongly on the eigenmode formations associated with the boundary conditions. The results of numerical analysis are compared with the results of measurements of the waves with magnetic probes. A very good degree of agreement is found between the theoretical results and the experimental results. It is suggested that the simultaneous excitation of several radial eigenmodes with high-harmonic fast waves is effective for higher density plasma production.
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