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This work presents the first analysis of the disruptive locked mode (LM) triggered by the dynamics of a confinement change. It shows that, under certain conditions, the LM threshold during the transient is significantly lower than expected from steady states. We investigate the sensitivity to a controlled n = 1 error field (EF) activated prior to the L-H transition in the COMPASS tokamak, at q _95 ∼ 3, β _N ∼ 1, and using EF coils on the high-field side of the vessel. A threshold for EF penetration subsequent to the L-H transition is identified, which shows no significant trend with density or applied torque, and is an apparent consequence of the reduced intrinsic rotation of the 2/1 mode during this transient phase. This finding challenges the assumption made in theoretical and empirical works that natural mode rotation can be predicted by global plasma parameters and urges against using any parametric EF penetration scaling derived from steady-state experiments to define the EF correction strategy in the entire discharge. Furthermore, even at EFs below the identified penetration threshold, disruptive locking of sawtooth-seeded 2/1 tearing modes is observed after about 30% of L-H transitions without external torque.

A heat pulse experiment was carried out in the tokamak ASDEX Upgrade to estimate the stochastic layer width of a deuterium L-mode discharge with externally applied Magnetic Perturbations. The method relies on the deposition of ECRH pulses in the plasma edge while measuring the divertor target heat flux with high temporal resolution IR thermography and Langmuir probes. The experimental results were compared to simulations of the time dependent heat pulse propagation on a constant plasma background with the EMC3-EIRENE code package, using an ad-hoc screening model. If no screening was taken into account in the simulations a decrease in the characteristic heat pulse propagation time was observed, which shows that the heat transport is enhanced compared to the screened cases. No such enhancement was found in the experiment, indicating strong screening. In further simulations the effect of screening on the target fluxes was investigated for varying densities. For low densities it was found that screening reduces the strike line splitting strongly, while for higher densities no strong strike line splitting was found, independent of the screening degree. For strongly detached L-mode conditions with MPs experiments at AUG indicate that the lobe structures vanish completely. Keywords: ASDEX upgrade, Magnetic perturbations, Divertor heat flux, MSC: 00-01, 99-00

A global heat flux model based on a fractional derivative of plasma pressure is proposed for the heat transport in fusion plasmas. The degree of the fractional derivative of the heat flux, α, is defined through the power balance analysis of the steady state. The model was used to obtain the experimental values of α for a large database of the Joint European Torus (JET) carbon-wall as well as ITER like-wall plasmas. The fractional degrees of the electron heat flux are found to be α

New diagnostic, modelling and plant capability on the Mega Ampère Spherical Tokamak (MAST) have delivered important results in key areas for ITER/DEMO and the upcoming MAST Upgrade, a step towards future ST devices on the path to fusion currently under procurement. Micro-stability analysis of the pedestal highlights the potential roles of micro-tearing modes and kinetic ballooning modes for the pedestal formation. Mitigation of edge localized modes (ELM) using resonant magnetic perturbation has been demonstrated for toroidal mode numbers n = 3, 4, 6 with an ELM frequency increase by up to a factor of 9, compatible with pellet fuelling. The peak heat flux of mitigated and natural ELMs follows the same linear trend with ELM energy loss and the first ELM-resolved Ti measurements in the divertor region are shown. Measurements of flow shear and turbulence dynamics during L-H transitions show filaments erupting from the plasma edge whilst the full flow shear is still present. Off-axis neutral beam injection helps to strongly reduce the redistribution of fast-ions due to fishbone modes when compared to on-axis injection. Low-k ion-scale turbulence has been measured in L-mode and compared to global gyro-kinetic simulations. A statistical analysis of principal turbulence time scales shows them to be of comparable magnitude and reasonably correlated with turbulence decorrelation time. Te inside the island of a neoclassical tearing mode allow the analysis of the island evolution without assuming specific models for the heat flux. Other results include the discrepancy of the current profile evolution during the current ramp-up with solutions of the poloidal field diffusion equation, studies of the anomalous Doppler resonance compressional Alfvén eigenmodes, disruption mitigation studies and modelling of the new divertor design for MAST Upgrade. The novel 3D electron Bernstein synthetic imaging shows promising first data sensitive to the edge current profile and flows. © 2013 IAEA, Vienna.

Fast SA5 camera operating in the visible range has been installed on the COMPASS tokamak and used to study oscillations of visible light emission at plasma periphery. The work proved capability of the camera to detect several types of oscillatory modes in the COMPASS plasma in the frequency range 500 Hz – 50 kHz, such as sawteeth (~400 Hz), tearing mode (~10 kHz) or geodesic acoustic mode (~30 kHz). Moreover, method for visualising their spatial structure has been proposed and tested on the case of a rotating ~10 kHz tearing mode. In addition, the camera has been used as a tool to study time evolution of divertor strike point splitting induced by resonant magnetic perturbations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this letter, the effect of full Hamiltonian approach to plasma particle dynamics, in the presence of magnetic islands in a tokamak, is discussed. Usually, for the estimation of the diffusion of particles, the stochasticity regime of magnetic field lines is considered as sufficient. We have found that for ions in Hamiltonian description, the diffusive character of their trajectories considerably differs from the diffusive character of magnetic field lines. This then could have, among others, an influence on the performance of the ergodic divertor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The plasma response to resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) in ASDEX Upgrade is modeled with the non-linear resistive MHD code JOREK, using input profiles that match those of the experiments as closely as possible. The RMP configuration for which edge localized modes are best mitigated in experiments is related to the largest edge kink response observed near the X-point in modeling. On the edge resonant surfaces q  =  m/n, the coupling between the kink component (m  >  nq) and the m resonant component is found to induce the amplification of the resonant magnetic perturbation. The ergodicity and the 3D-displacement near the X-point induced by the resonant amplification can only partly explain the density pumpout observed in experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been shown on several tokamaks that application of a resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) field to the plasma can lead to suppression or mitigation of edge-localized mode (ELM) instabilities. Due to the rotation of the plasma in the RMP field reference system, currents are induced on resonant surfaces within the plasma, consequently screening the original perturbation. In this work, the extensive set of 104 saddle loops installed on the COMPASS tokamak is utilized to measure the plasma response field for two n  =  2 RMP configurations of different poloidal mode m spectra. It is shown that spatially the response field is in opposite phase to the original perturbation, and that the poloidal profile of the measured response field does not depend on the poloidal profile of the applied RMP. Simulations of the plasma response by the linear MHD code MARS-F (Liu et al 2000 Phys. Plasmas7 3681) reveal that both of the studied RMP configurations are well screened by the plasma. Comparison of measured plasma response field with the simulated one shows a good agreement across the majority of poloidal angles, with the exception of the midplane low-field side area, where discrepancy is seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results from three-dimensional modeling of plasma edge transport and plasma–wall interactions during application of resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) fields for control of edge-localized modes in the ITER standard 15 MA Q  =  10 H-mode are presented. The full 3D plasma fluid and kinetic neutral transport code EMC3-EIRENE is used for the modeling. Four characteristic perturbed magnetic topologies are considered and discussed with reference to the axisymmetric case without RMP fields. Two perturbation field amplitudes at full and half of the ITER ELM control coil current capability using the vacuum approximation are compared to a case including a strongly screening plasma response. In addition, a vacuum field case at high q95  =  4.2 featuring increased magnetic shear has been modeled. Formation of a three-dimensional plasma boundary is seen for all four perturbed magnetic topologies. The resonant field amplitudes and the effective radial magnetic field at the separatrix define the shape and extension of the 3D plasma boundary. Opening of the magnetic field lines from inside the separatrix establishes scrape-off layer-like channels of direct parallel particle and heat flux towards the divertor yielding a reduction of the main plasma thermal and particle confinement. This impact on confinement is most accentuated at full RMP current and is strongly reduced when screened RMP fields are considered, as well as for the reduced coil current cases. The divertor fluxes are redirected into a three-dimensional pattern of helical magnetic footprints on the divertor target tiles. At maximum perturbation strength, these fingers stretch out as far as 60 cm across the divertor targets, yielding heat flux spreading and the reduction of peak heat fluxes by 30%. However, at the same time substantial and highly localized heat fluxes reach divertor areas well outside of the axisymmetric heat flux decay profile. Reduced RMP amplitudes due to screening or reduced RMP coil current yield a reduction of the width of the divertor flux spreading to about 20–25 cm and cause increased peak heat fluxes back to values similar to those in the axisymmetric case. The dependencies of these features on the divertor recycling regime and the perpendicular transport assumptions, as well as toroidal averaged effects mimicking rotation of the RMP field, are discussed in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amplitude of locked instabilities, likely magnetic islands, seen as precursors to disruptions has been studied using data from the JET, ASDEX Upgrade and COMPASS tokamaks. It was found that the thermal quench, that often initiates the disruption, is triggered when the amplitude has reached a distinct level. This information can be used to determine thresholds for simple disruption prediction schemes. The measured amplitude in part depends on the distance of the perturbation to the measurement coils. Hence the threshold for the measured amplitude depends on the mode location (i.e. the rational q-surface) and thus indirectly on parameters such as the edge safety factor, q95, and the internal inductance, li(3), that determine the shape of the q-profile. These dependencies can be used to set the disruption thresholds more precisely. For the ITER baseline scenario, with typically q95  =  3.2, li(3)  =  0.9 and taking into account the position of the measurement coils on ITER, the maximum allowable measured locked mode amplitude normalized to engineering parameters was estimated to be a·BML(rc)/Ip  =  0.92 m mT/MA, or directly as a fraction edge poloidal magnetic field: BML(rc)/Bθ(a)  =  5 · 10−3. But these values decrease for operation at higher q95 or lower li(3). The analysis found furthermore that the above empirical criterion to trigger a thermal quench is more consistent with a criterion derived with the concept of a critical island size, i.e. the thermal quench seemed to be triggered at a distinct island width. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the status of the COMPASS tokamak, its comprehensive diagnostic equipment and plasma scenarios as a baseline for the future studies. The former COMPASS-D tokamak was in operation at UKAEA Culham, UK in 1992–2002. Later, the device was transferred to the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (IPP AS CR), where it was installed during 2006–2011. Since 2012 the device has been in a full operation with Type-I and Type-III ELMy H-modes as a base scenario. This enables together with the ITER-like plasma shape and flexible NBI heating system (two injectors enabling co- or balanced injection) to perform ITER relevant studies in different parameter range to the other tokamaks (ASDEX-Upgrade, DIII-D, JET) and to contribute to the ITER scallings. In addition to the description of the device, current status and the main diagnostic equipment, the paper focuses on the characterization of the Ohmic as well as NBI-assisted H-modes. Moreover, Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) are categorized based on their frequency dependence on power density flowing across separatrix. The filamentary structure of ELMs is studied and the parallel heat flux in individual filaments is measured by probes on the outer mid-plane and in the divertor. The measurements are supported by observation of ELM and inter-ELM filaments by an ultra-fast camera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mega Ampère Spherical Tokamak (MAST) programme is strongly focused on addressing key physics issues in preparation for operation of ITER as well as providing solutions for DEMO design choices. In this regard, MAST has provided key results in understanding and optimizing H-mode confinement, operating with smaller edge localized modes (ELMs), predicting and handling plasma exhaust and tailoring auxiliary current drive. In all cases, the high-resolution diagnostic capability on MAST is complemented by sophisticated numerical modelling to facilitate a deeper understanding. Mitigation of ELMs with resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) with toroidal mode number nRMP = 2, 3, 4, 6 has been demonstrated: at high and low collisionality; for the first ELM following the transition to high confinement operation; during the current ramp-up; and with rotating nRMP = 3 RMPs. nRMP = 4, 6 fields cause less rotation braking whilst the power to access H-mode is less with nRMP = 4 than nRMP = 3, 6. Refuelling with gas or pellets gives plasmas with mitigated ELMs and reduced peak heat flux at the same time as achieving good confinement. A synergy exists between pellet fuelling and RMPs, since mitigated ELMs remove fewer particles. Inter-ELM instabilities observed with Doppler backscattering are consistent with gyrokinetic simulations of micro-tearing modes in the pedestal. Meanwhile, ELM precursors have been strikingly observed with beam emission spectroscopy (BES) measurements. A scan in beta at the L–H transition shows that pedestal height scales strongly with core pressure. Gyro-Bohm normalized turbulent ion heat flux (as estimated from the BES data) is observed to decrease with increasing tilt of the turbulent eddies. Fast ion redistribution by energetic particle modes depends on density, and access to a quiescent domain with ‘classical’ fast ion transport is found above a critical density. Highly efficient electron Bernstein wave current drive (1 A W−1) has been achieved in solenoid-free start-up. A new proton detector has characterized escaping fusion products. Langmuir probes and a high-speed camera suggest filaments play a role in particle transport in the private flux region whilst coherence imaging has measured scrape-off layer (SOL) flows. BOUT++ simulations show that fluxes due to filaments are strongly dependent on resistivity and magnetic geometry of the SOL, with higher radial fluxes at higher resistivity. Finally, MAST Upgrade is due to begin operation in 2016 to support ITER preparation and importantly to operate with a Super-X divertor to test extended leg concepts for particle and power exhaust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustained edge localized mode (ELM) mitigation has been achieved on MAST and AUG using resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) with various toroidal mode numbers over a wide range of low to medium collisionality discharges. The ELM energy loss and peak heat loads at the divertor targets have been reduced. The ELM mitigation phase is typically associated with a drop in plasma density and overall stored energy. In one particular scenario on MAST, by carefully adjusting the fuelling it has been possible to counteract the drop in density and to produce plasmas with mitigated ELMs, reduced peak divertor heat flux and with minimal degradation in pedestal height and confined energy. While the applied resonant magnetic perturbation field can be a good indicator for the onset of ELM mitigation on MAST and AUG there are some cases where this is not the case and which clearly emphasize the need to take into account the plasma response to the applied perturbations. The plasma response calculations show that the increase in ELM frequency is correlated with the size of the edge peeling-tearing like response of the plasma and the distortions of the plasma boundary in the X-point region. In many cases the RMPs act to increase the frequency of type I ELMs, however, there are examples where the type I ELMs are suppressed and there is a transition to a small or type IV ELM-ing regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamics of a multi-edge localized mode (ELM) cycle as well as the ELM mitigation by resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) are modeled in realistic tokamak X-point geometry with the non-linear reduced MHD code JOREK. The diamagnetic rotation is found to be a key parameter enabling us to reproduce the cyclical dynamics of the plasma relaxations and to model the near-symmetric ELM power deposition on the inner and outer divertor target plates consistently with experimental measurements. Moreover, the non-linear coupling of the RMPs with unstable modes are found to modify the edge magnetic topology and induce a continuous MHD activity in place of a large ELM crash, resulting in the mitigation of the ELMs. At larger diamagnetic rotation, a bifurcation from unmitigated ELMs—at low RMP current—towards fully suppressed ELMs—at large RMP current—is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The full dynamics of a multi-edge-localized-mode (ELM) cycle is modeled for the first time in realistic tokamak X-point geometry with the nonlinear reduced MHD code jorek. The diamagnetic rotation is found to be instrumental to stabilize the plasma after an ELM crash and to model the cyclic reconstruction and collapse of the plasma pressure profile. ELM relaxations are cyclically initiated each time the pedestal gradient crosses a triggering threshold. Diamagnetic drifts are also found to yield a near-symmetric ELM power deposition on the inner and outer divertor target plates, consistent with experimental measurements.

A possible mechanism of edge localized modes (ELMs) mitigation by resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) is proposed based on the results of nonlinear resistive magnetohydrodynamic modeling using the jorek code, realistic JET-like plasma parameters and an RMP spectrum of JET error-field correction coils (EFCC) with a main toroidal number n=2 were used in the simulations. Without RMPs, a large ELM relaxation is obtained mainly due to the most unstable medium-n ballooning mode. The externally imposed RMP drives nonlinearly the modes coupled to n=2 RMP which produce small multimode relaxations, mitigated ELMs. The modes driven by RMPs exhibit a tearinglike structure and produce additional islands. Mitigated ELMs deposit energy into the divertor mainly in the structures ("footprints") created by n=2 RMPs, however, slightly modulated by other nonlinearly driven even harmonics. The divertor power flux during a ELM phase mitigated by RMPs is reduced almost by a factor of 10. The mechanism of ELM mitigation by RMPs proposed here reproduces generic features of high collisionality RMP experiments, where large ELMs are replaced by small, much more frequent ELMs or magnetic turbulence. Total ELM suppression was also demonstrated in modeling at higher RMP amplitude.