The toroidal symmetry of the geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) zonal flows is identified with toroidally distributed three step Langmuir probes at the edge of the HuanLiuqi-2A (commonly referred to as HL-2A) tokamak plasmas for the first time. High coherence of both the GAM and the ambient turbulence for the toroidally displaced measurements along a magnetic field line is observed, in contrast with the high coherence of the GAM but low coherence of the ambient turbulence when the toroidally displaced measurements are not along the same field line. The radial and poloidal features of the flows are also simultaneously determined. The nonlinear three wave coupling between the high frequency turbulent fluctuations and the flows is demonstrated to be a plausible formation mechanism of the flows.

The dynamic features of the low-intermediate-high-(L-I-H) confinement transitions on HL-2A tokamak are presented. Here we report the discovery of two types of limit cycles (dubbed type-Y and type-J), which show opposite temporal ordering between the radial electric field and turbulence intensity. In type-Y, which appears first after an L-I transition, the turbulence grows first, followed by the localized electric field. In contrast, the electric field leads type-J. The turbulence-induced zonal flow and pressure-gradient-induced drift play essential roles in the two types of limit cycles, respectively. The condition of transition between types-Y and -J is studied in terms of the normalized radial electric field. An I-H transition is demonstrated to occur only from type-J.

In this paper, recent progress on experimental analysis and theoretical models for non-local transport (non-Fickian fluxes in real space) is reviewed. The non-locality in the heat and momentum transport observed in the plasma, the departures from linear flux-gradient proportionality, and externally triggered non-local transport phenomena are described in both L-mode and improved-mode plasmas. Ongoing evaluation of 'fast front' and 'intrinsically non-local' models, and their success in comparisons with experimental data, are discussed

The absolute rate of nonlinear energy transfer among broadband turbulence, low-frequency zonal flows (ZFs) and geodesic acoustic modes (GAMs) was measured for the first time in fusion-grade plasmas using two independent methods across a range of heating powers. The results show that turbulent kinetic energy from intermediate frequencies (20-80 kHz) was transferred into ZFs and GAMs, as well as into fluctuations at higher frequencies (>80  kHz). As the heating power was increased, the energy transfer from turbulence into GAMs and the GAM amplitudes increased, peaked and then decreased, while the energy transfer into the ZFs and the ZFs themselves increased monotonically with heating power. Thus there exists a competition between ZFs and GAMs for the transfer of turbulent energy, and the transfer into ZFs becomes dominant as the heating power is increased. The poloidal-radial Reynolds stress and the mean radial electric field profiles were also measured at different heating powers and found to be consistent with the energy transfer measurement. The results suggest that ZFs play an important role in the low-to-high (L-H) plasma confinement transition.

The features of ion and electron fishbone instabilities have been investigated during neutral beam injection (NBI) and electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) on HL-2A. Some new phenomena, such as frequency jumps and V-font-style sweeping, have been presented in the paper. Three kinds of i-fishbones, including hybrid sawtoothfishbone (sawbone), run-on fishbone and classical fishbone, have been identified during NBI. During high power (P ECRH > 0.7 MW) ECRH, the experimental results indicate that the e-fishbone frequencies are higher than those during low power ECRH, and are provided with up-and down-chirping behaviours, and sometimes also with V-font-style sweeping. The periodic mode frequency jumps have also been detected by a soft x-ray array. It is possible to correlate these phenomena with the redistribution of energetic electrons.

Beta-induced Alfvén eigenmode (BAE) during a strong tearing mode activity (termed as m-BAE) has been observed and investigated in HL-2A. BAE excited by energetic electrons (termed as e-BAE) has been identified both in the Ohmic and ECRH plasma. The hard x-ray spectrum detected by cadmium telluride and the non-thermal radiation measured by electron cyclotron emission are used to analyse the behaviour of the energetic electrons. Experimental results show that the e-BAE is related not only to the populations of the energetic electrons, but also their energy distribution. An interesting result about the BAEs modulated by a supersonic molecular beam and gas puffing is presented. In addition, BAEs during a sawtooth cycle are described in this paper. To assess the identification of the e-BAE and m-BAE, the generalized fishbone-like dispersion relation and magnetic-island-induced BAE dispersion relation are solved near marginal stability, respectively. Compared with experimental results, the calculation analysis shows that the observed frequencies are all close to the theoretical results.

Density profiles in pedestal region (H-mode) are measured in HL-2A and the characteristics of the density pedestal are described. Cold particle deposition by Supersonic Molecular Beam Injection (SMBI) within the pedestal is verified. ELM mitigation by SMBI into the H-mode pedestal is demonstrated and the relevant physics is elucidated. The sensitivity of the effect to SMBI pressure and duration are studied. Following SMBI, the ELM frequency increases and ELM amplitude decreases for a finite duration period. Increases in ELM frequency of SMBI ELM f / 0 ELM f 2-3.5 are achieved. This experiment argues that the ELM mitigation results from an increase in Page 2 higher frequency fluctuations and transport events in the pedestal, which are caused by SMBI. These inhibit the occurrence of large transport events which span the entire pedestal width. The observed change in the density pedestal profiles and edge particle flux spectrum with and without SMBI supports this interpretation. An analysis of the experiment and a model shows that ELMs can be mitigated by SMBI with shallow particle penetration into the pedestal.

Strong m = 1 MHD activities are observed in the HL-1M tokamak during off-axis electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) when the cyclotron resonance location is placed just outside the q = 1 surface at the high-magnetic-field side of the magnetic surface. Addition of lower-hybrid waves to ECRH significantly enhances the MHD excitation, but lower-hybrid waves alone cannot excite or sustain the mode. This result is a clear demonstration of the suprathermal trapped electron effect on the instability because of the absence of energetic ions in the plasma.