We report observations of the dynamic response of micro-fluctuations and turbulent flux to a low-frequency heating power modulation in the Large Helical Device. The responses of heat flux and micro-fluctuation intensity differ from that of the change in temperature gradient. This result violates the local transport model, where turbulence is determined by the local temperature gradient. A new relationship between flux, gradient and turbulence is found. In addition to the temperature gradient, the heating rate is proposed as a new, direct controlling parameter of turbulence to explain the fast response of turbulence against periodic modulation of heating power.

OVERVIEW OF THE LARGE HELICAL DEVICE PROJECT. The Large Helical Device (LHD) has successfully started running plasma confinement experiments after a long construction period of eight years. During the construction and machine commissioning phases, a variety of milestones were attained in fusion engineering which successfully led to the first operation, and the first plasma was ignited on 31 March 1998. Two experimental campaigns are planned in 1998. In the first campaign, the magnetic flux mapping clearly demonstrated a nested structure of magnetic surfaces. The first plasma experiments were conducted with second harmonic 84 and 82.6 GHz ECH at a heating power input of 0.35 MW. The magnetic field was set at 1.5 T in these campaigns so as to accumulate operational experience with the superconducting coils. In the second campaign, auxiliary heating with NBI at 3 MW has been carried out. Averaged electron densities of up to 6 × 10 19 m-3 , central temperatures ranging from 1.4 IAEA-F1-CN-69/OV1/4 2 to 1.5 keV and stored energies of up to 0.22 MJ have been attained despite the fact that the impurity level has not yet been minimized. The obtained scarling of energy confinement time has been found to be consistent with the ISS95 scaling law with some enhancement.

Abstract:We have measured extreme ultraviolet (EUV)

This Letter presents the discovery of macroscale electron temperature fluctuations with a long radial correlation length comparable to the plasma minor radius in a toroidal plasma. Their spatiotemporal structure is characterized by a low frequency of ∼1-3  kHz, ballistic radial propagation, a poloidal or toroidal mode number of m/n=1/1 (or 2/1), and an amplitude of ∼2% at maximum. Nonlinear coupling between the long-range fluctuations and the microscopic fluctuations is identified. A change of the amplitude of the long-range fluctuation is transmitted across the plasma radius at the velocity which is of the order of the drift velocity.

Edge cooling experiments with a tracer-encapsulated solid pellet in the Large Helical Device (LHD) show a significant rise of core electron temperature (the maximum rise is around 1 keV) as well as in many tokamaks. This experimental result indicates the possible presence of the nonlocality of electron heat transport in plasmas where turbulence as a cause of anomalous transport is dominated. The nonlocal electron temperature rise in the LHD takes place in almost the same parametric domain (e.g. in a low density) as in the tokamaks. Meanwhile, the experimental results of LHD show some new aspects of nonlocal electron temperature rise, for example the delay of the nonlocal rise of core electron temperature relative to the pellet penetration time increases with the increase in collisionality in the core plasma and the decrease in electron temperature gradient scale length in the outer region of the plasma.

Transient transport experiments are performed in plasmas with and without internal transport barriers (ITB) on LHD and JT-60U. The dependence of χe on the electron temperature, Te, and on the electron temperature gradient, ∇Te, is analysed with an empirical non-linear heat transport model. In plasmas without an ITB, two different types of non-linearity of the electron heat transport are observed from cold/heat pulse propagation: the χe depends on Te and ∇Te in JT-60U, while the ∇Te dependence is weak in LHD. Inside the ITB region, there is none or weak ∇Te dependence both in LHD and JT-60U. Growth of the cold pulse driven by the negative Te dependence of χe is observed inside the ITB region (LHD) and near the boundary of the ITB region (JT-60U).

Evidence for a reduction of heat transport inside the magnetic island O point is observed from the propagation of a cold pulse produced by a tracer encapsulated solid pellet in the Large Helical Device. A small peak and slow propagation of the cold pulse are observed inside the island. A significant result is that electron heat diffusivity inside the island is estimated to be 0.2 m(2)/s which is smaller than that outside the island by an order of magnitude.

In the first four years of the LHD experiment, several encouraging results have emerged, the most significant of which is that MHD stability and good transport are compatible in the inward shifted axis configuration. The observed energy confinement at this optimal configuration is consistent with ISS95 scaling with an enhancement factor of 1.5. The confinement enhancement over the smaller heliotron devices is attributed to the high edge temperature. We find that the plasma with an average beta of 3% is stable in this configuration, even though the theoretical stability conditions of Mercier modes and pressure driven low-n modes are violated. In the low density discharges heated by NBI and ECR, internal transport barrier (ITB) and an associated high central temperature (>10 keV) are seen. The radial electric field measured in these discharges is positive (electron root) and expected to play a key role in the formation of the ITB. The positive electric field is also found to suppress the ion thermal diffusivity as predicted by neoclassical transport theory. The width of the externally imposed island is found to decrease when the plasma is collisionless with finite beta and increase when the plasma is collisional. The ICRF heating in LHD is successful and a high energy tail (up to 500 keV) has been detected for minority ion heating, demonstrating good confinement of the high energy particles. The magnetic field line structure unique to the heliotron edge configuration is confirmed by measuring the plasma density and temperature profiles on the divertor plate. A long pulse (2 min) discharge with an ICRF power of 0.4 MW has been demonstrated and the energy confinement characteristics are almost the same as those in short pulse discharges.