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Experiments on ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) in 2021 and 2022 have addressed a number of critical issues for ITER and EU DEMO. A major objective of the AUG programme is to shed light on the underlying physics of confinement, stability, and plasma exhaust in order to allow reliable extrapolation of results obtained on present day machines to these reactor-grade devices. Concerning pedestal physics, the mitigation of edge localised modes (ELMs) using resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) was found to be consistent with a reduction of the linear peeling-ballooning stability threshold due to the helical deformation of the plasma. Conversely, ELM suppression by RMPs is ascribed to an increased pedestal transport that keeps the plasma away from this boundary. Candidates for this increased transport are locally enhanced turbulence and a locked magnetic island in the pedestal. The enhanced D-alpha (EDA) and quasi-continuous exhaust (QCE) regimes have been established as promising ELM-free scenarios. Here, the pressure gradient at the foot of the H-mode pedestal is reduced by a quasi-coherent mode, consistent with violation of the high-n ballooning mode stability limit there. This is suggestive that the EDA and QCE regimes have a common underlying physics origin. In the area of transport physics, full radius models for both L- and H-modes have been developed. These models predict energy confinement in AUG better than the commonly used global scaling laws, representing a large step towards the goal of predictive capability. A new momentum transport analysis framework has been developed that provides access to the intrinsic torque in the plasma core. In the field of exhaust, the X-Point Radiator (XPR), a cold and dense plasma region on closed flux surfaces close to the X-point, was described by an analytical model that provides an understanding of its formation as well as its stability, i.e., the conditions under which it transitions into a deleterious MARFE with the potential to result in a disruptive termination. With the XPR close to the divertor target, a new detached divertor concept, the compact radiative divertor, was developed. Here, the exhaust power is radiated before reaching the target, allowing close proximity of the X-point to the target. No limitations by the shallow field line angle due to the large flux expansion were observed, and sufficient compression of neutral density was demonstrated. With respect to the pumping of non-recycling impurities, the divertor enrichment was found to mainly depend on the ionisation energy of the impurity under consideration. In the area of MHD physics, analysis of the hot plasma core motion in sawtooth crashes showed good agreement with nonlinear 2-fluid simulations. This indicates that the fast reconnection observed in these events is adequately described including the pressure gradient and the electron inertia in the parallel Ohm’s law. Concerning disruption physics, a shattered pellet injection system was installed in collaboration with the ITER International Organisation. Thanks to the ability to vary the shard size distribution independently of the injection velocity, as well as its impurity admixture, it was possible to tailor the current quench rate, which is an important requirement for future large devices such as ITER. Progress was also made modelling the force reduction of VDEs induced by massive gas injection on AUG. The H-mode density limit was characterised in terms of safe operational space with a newly developed active feedback control method that allowed the stability boundary to be probed several times within a single discharge without inducing a disruptive termination. Regarding integrated operation scenarios, the role of density peaking in the confinement of the ITER baseline scenario (high plasma current) was clarified. The usual energy confinement scaling ITER98( p,y ) does not capture this effect, but the more recent H20 scaling does, highlighting again the importance of developing adequate physics based models. Advanced tokamak scenarios, aiming at large non-inductive current fraction due to non-standard profiles of the safety factor in combination with high normalised plasma pressure were studied with a focus on their access conditions. A method to guide the approach of the targeted safety factor profiles was developed, and the conditions for achieving good confinement were clarified. Based on this, two types of advanced scenarios (‘hybrid’ and ‘elevated’ q -profile) were established on AUG and characterised concerning their plasma performance.

We present observations, numerical simulations, and analysis from experiments in the Lithium Tokamak Experiment-Beta (LTX- β ) in which the electron temperature profile ( T _e ( r )) shifts from flat to peaked and a tearing mode is also destabilized when the average density ( n _e ^ave ) exceeds ∼10 ^19 m ^−3 . Flat T _e ( r ) is obtained routinely in LTX- β , with a lithium coated, low-recycling first wall, once the external fueling is stopped and density decays [Boyle et al 2023 Nucl. Fusion 63 056020]. In the present experiment, flat T _e profiles can be sustained while maintaining constant n _e ^ave below a line averaged density threshold ( n _e ^ave _th ) of ∼10 ^19 m ^−3 . Above n _e ^ave _th , T _e ( r ) shifts from flat to peaked and a tearing mode is destabilized. Due to low recycling, the achieved n _e ^ave can be controlled precisely by external fueling and hence, a certain threshold of the edge neutral inventory from the external fueling is experimentally manifested through n _e ^ave _th . The goal of the present work is to investigate the role of edge neutrals in determining T _e ( r ) and MHD stability in the unique low-recycling regime of LTX- β . Our hypothesis is that the peaking of T _e ( r ) beyond n _e ^ave _th is due ultimately to the edge cooling by the cold neutrals beyond a critical fueling flux. At lower fueling flux, flat T _e ( r ) results in broader pressure profile and lower resistivity, which in turn stabilizes the tearing mode. This hypothesis is supported by edge neutral density estimation by DEGAS 2 code. Mode analysis by singular value decomposition confirms the tearing mode structure to be m / n = 2/1 ( m and n being the poloidal and toroidal mode numbers). Linear tearing stability analysis with M3D-C1 predicts that plasmas with n _e ^ave > 10 ^19 are highly susceptible to a n = 1 tearing mode. ORBIT simulations, however, confirmed that the tearing modes do not contribute to the loss of fast ions from neutral beam injection. This study shows for the first time that the neutral inventory at the edge could be one of the deciding factors for the achievability of the unique operation regime of flat T _e ( r ) and the excitation of tearing activity that could be disruptive for the plasmas.

The achievement of high gain, stationary conditions in a tokamak scenario aimed at producing fusion energy in the ITER Project is crucial to the demonstration that this form of energy can be used in future reactors to provide cheap and clean energy globally. Disruptions are a challenge for the fusion energy field, in particular for the ‘ITER Baseline Scenario’ (IBS), as reproduced in the DIII-D tokamak. This work shows that a solution has been found for the m = 2/ n = 1 tearing modes that have consistently caused disruptions in the IBS: stable operation down to zero input torque was achieved by modifying the current density profile at the beginning of the pressure flattop and the ELM character later in the discharges, guided by previous results showing that the most likely cause of these instabilities is the current density profile. The coupling between sawteeth, n>2 modes and the 2/1 TMs is shown to not be statistically significant, nor the leading origin for the evolution towards instability. Ideal and resistive MHD modeling provide positive verification that a steeper ‘well’ in the region of the q = 2 rational surface leads to worse ideal stability, higher tearing index Δ’ and lower threshold Δ’ _c for resistive instabilities, consistent with the experimental results. This provides confidence that the methods used in this work can be extrapolated to other devices and applied to avoid disruptions in ITER and pulsed fusion devices worldwide.

The equilibria of the HL-2M tokamak, designed for steady-state operation with reversed magnetic shear and double transport barriers, are calculated using TOQ code, and the n = 1 linear ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) stability of the equilibria is investigated using GATO code. To improve the beta ( β N ) limit, the MHD stability of the equilibria with different heights of internal transport barrier (ITB) and edge transport barrier (ETB) is simulated. The simulation results indicate that the ITB drives low m globalized modes while the ETB drives high m edge localized modes, and thus a moderate barrier height ratio is beneficial to MHD stability. By adjusting the heights of both barriers with different plasma shapes, as well as different locations and widths of ITBs, optimal equilibria with improved MHD stability are achieved, which always have a moderate barrier height ratio unless the ITB is extremely wide or very close to the edge. In ideal-wall conditions, when the ITB is wide enough or very close to the edge, β N limits could exceed six, or even reach seven in some special cases. Increasing elongation and triangularity, broadening the ITB, as well as moving the ITB to a large minor radius, can contribute to the optimization of the β N limit, especially when combined with the stabilizing effect from an ideal wall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stabilization of the ‘rigid’ flute and ballooning modes both with and without the effect of additional MHD anchors in an axisymmetric mirror trap, with the help of a perfectly conducting lateral wall, is studied using a model pressure distribution of a plasma with a steep-angle neutral beam injection at the magnetic field minimum. The calculations were performed for an anisotropic plasma in a model that simulates the pressure distribution during the injection of beams of fast neutral atoms into the magnetic field minimum. It is assumed that the lateral wall is an axisymmetric shell surrounding the plasma that follows the shape of the magnetic field line and is placed at a certain distance to the plasma border. It has been found that for the effective stabilization of the modes by the lateral wall only the parameter beta ( β , ratio of plasma pressure to the magnetic field pressure) must exceed some critical value β _crit . When combined with the conducting end plates imitating the MHD end stabilizers, there are two critical beta values and two stability zones $0\lt\beta\lt\beta_{\textrm{crit}1}$ and $\beta_{\textrm{crit}2}\lt\beta\lt1$ that can merge, making the entire range of allowable beta values $0\lt\beta\lt1$ stable. The dependence of the critical betas on the degree of plasma anisotropy, the mirror ratio, and the width of the vacuum gap between the plasma and the lateral wall is studied. In contrast to the previous studies focusing on a plasma model with a sharp boundary, we calculated the stability zones for a number of diffuse radial pressure profiles and several axial magnetic field profiles.