Recent J-TEXT research has highlighted the significance of the role that non-axisymmetric magnetic perturbations, so called three-dimensional (3D) magnetic perturbation (MP) fields, play in a fundamentally 2D concept, i.e. tokamaks. This paper presents the J-TEXT results achieved over the last two years, especially on the impacts of 3D MP fields on magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, plasma disruptions and plasma turbulence transport. On J-TEXT, the resonant MP (RMP) system, capable of providing either a static or a high frequency (up to 8 kHz) rotating RMP field, has been upgraded by adding a new set of 12 in-vessel saddle coils. The shattered pellet injection system was built in J-TEXT in the spring of 2018. The new capabilities advance J-TEXT to be at the forefront of international magnetic fusion facilities, allowing flexible study of 3D effects and disruption mitigation in a tokamak. The fast rotating RMP field has been successfully applied for avoidance of mode locking and the prevention of plasma disruption. A new control strategy, which applies pulsed RMP to the tearing mode only during the accelerating phase region, was proved by nonlinear numerical modelling to be efficient in accelerating mode rotation and even completely suppresses the mode. Remarkably, the rotating tearing mode was completely suppressed by the electrode biasing. The impacts of 3D magnetic topology on the turbulence has been investigated on J-TEXT. It is found that the fluctuations of electron density, electron temperature and plasma potential can be significantly modulated by the island structure, and a larger fluctuation level appears at the X-point of islands. The suppression of runaway electrons during disruptions is essential to the operation of ITER, and it has been reached by utilizing the 3D magnetic perturbations on J-TEXT. This may provide an alternative mechanism of runaway suppression for large-scale tokamaks and ITER.

Significant effects of impurities on residual zonal flow (ZF) in deuterium (D)-tritium (T) plasmas are found. When the gyroradius of impurities is larger (smaller) than that of main ions, the intermediate scale (radial wavelength between trapped ion radial width bi

Hydrogenic ion mass effects, namely the isotopic effects on impurity transport driven by ion temperature gradient (ITG) turbulence are investigated using gyrokinetic theory.For non-trace impurities, changing from hydrogen (H) to deuterium (D), and to tritium (T) plasmas, the outward flux for lower (higher) ionized impurities or for lighter (heavier) impurities is found to decrease (increase), although isotopic dependence of ITG linear growth rate is weak. This is mainly due to the decrease of outward (inward) convection, while the isotopic dependence of diffusion is relatively weak. In addition, the isotopic effects reduce (enhance) the impurity flux of fully ionized carbon (C 6+ ) for weaker (stronger) magnetic shear. In trace impurity limit, the isotopic effects are found to reduce the accumulation of high-Z tungsten (W). Moreover, the isotopic effects on the peaking factor (PF) of trace high-Z W get stronger with stronger magnetic shear.

The scale selection and feedback loops for the formation and sustainment of a mesoscopic staircase profile structure are investigated for drift wave-zonal flow turbulence. A mean field model derived from the Hasegawa-Wakatani system and including the evolution of mean density, mean vorticity and perturbed potential enstrophy (PE), is used. It is found that a quasi-periodic zonal staircase forms from self-sharpening of modulation. The principle feedback loop is through the nonlinear dependence of mixing length on electron density gradient, which enters by way of the potential vorticity (PV) gradient. Counterintuitively, ⃑ × ⃑ shearing is not effective. Moreover, the number of steps in the staircase is sensitive to both the drive (production rate of PE and initial density gradient) and damping (flow viscosity and collisional diffusivity) factors. The minimal step scale is selected by competition a Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.

We investigate analytically the effects of energetic particles (EPs) on the instability of the density-gradient-driven collisionless trapped electron mode (CTEM) through linear gyrokinetic theory and bounce kinetic theory in tokamak plasmas. The effects of EPs, including fusion-born alpha particles and neutral-beam-injection-driven beam ions, on the CTEM instability are compared for the dynamic model with slowing-down (SD) and equivalent Maxwellian (EM) equilibrium EP distribution functions and dilution model. It is found that the density-gradient-driven CTEM instability in the long wavelength regime can be further destabilized by EPs mainly due to the downshift in the real frequency of the mode by dilution effects. This is attributed to more resonant electrons around the smaller phase velocity of the drift wave and the consequent stronger excitation of CTEM instability. The growth rate is slightly higher for the dilution model as compared to that for the dynamic model since the Landau damping effects of EPs are neglected in the dilution model. Moreover, there is no significant difference in the growth rate between the cases of SD and EM equilibrium EP distribution functions, except for the case of alpha particles and with relatively higher electron temperature.