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A passive visible spectroscopic diagnostic which may measure the profiles of line emission and continuum radiation simultaneously is first installed on HL-2A tokamak. The line-integrated brightness profiles nearly covering the whole plasma cross section are measured with the spatial resolution of 2.7 cm and temporal resolution of 10 ms. The absolute intensity calibration and relative sensitivity calibration among all the channels have been provided for this diagnostic. Graphite tiles to face the collective lens are installed on the inner vessel wall, which reduces the influence of wall reflection on the optical measurements. A local relatively-low temperature region, located at the plasma edge above the mid-plane and caused by plasma-baffle interaction, is confirmed by this diagnostic. The increase of the line-averaged Z ¯ e f f during auxiliary heating discharge is mainly due to the inward impurity transport. Assumed Zeff with flat profiles in Ohmic and NBI discharges, the line-integrated electron density profiles measured by the visible bremsstrahlung are in good agreement with the ones measured by the FIR interferometer.

In ASDEX Upgrade hybrid discharges, it is found that an externally applied n = 1 field preferentially distorts the plasma in the core, leading to significant flow damping there and elsewhere across the plasma radius. MARS-F/Q modeling of a neoclassical toroidal viscous NTV) torque that results from an amplified internal kink-type displacement in the plasma core is qualitatively consistent with the measured internal displacements, beta dependence, and rotation damping. Sensitivity studies indicate that the internal kink response and the resulting core flow damping critically depend on the plasma equilibrium pressure, the initial flow speed, the coil phasing and the proximity of q0 to 1. No appreciable flow damping is found for a βN plasma. A relatively slower initial toroidal flow results in a stronger core flow damping, due to the enhanced NTV torque. Weaker flow damping is achieved as q0 is assumed to be farther away from 1. Finally, a systematic coil phasing scan finds the strongest (weakest) flow damping occurring at the coil phasing of approximately 20 (200) degrees, quantitatively agreeing with experiments. This study points to the important role played by the internal kink response in plasma core flow damping in high-beta hybrid scenario plasmas such as that foreseen for ITER.

Turbulent transport of impurity ions with hollow density profiles (HDPs), which are widely observed in magnetically confined plasmas and desirable for fusion reactor, is self-consistently investigated. A full gyrokinetic description is employed for main and impurity ions. Instead of conventional ion temperature gradient (ITG, including impurity ITG) and trapped electron modes (TEMs), impurity modes (IMs), driven by impurity ion density gradient opposite to that of electrons, are considered. The impurity ion flux induced by IMs is shown to be approximately one order of magnitude higher than that induced by TEMs when both kinds of modes coexist. Main ITG and electron temperature gradient (ETG) are found to reduce influx of impurity ions significantly, resembling temperature screening effect of neoclassical transport of impurity ions. The simulation results such as peaking factor of the HDPs and the effects of main ITG are found in coincidence with the evidence observed in argon injection experiment on HL-2A tokamak. Thus, the IM turbulence is demonstrated to be a plausible mechanism for the transport of impurity ions with HDPs. A strong main ITG, ETG, and a low electron density gradient are expected to be beneficial for sustainment of HDPs of impurity ions and reduction of impurity accumulation in core plasma.

New mesoscale electric fluctuations (MSEFs) are identified in the edge plasmas of the HL-2A tokamak using multiple Langmuir probe arrays. The MSEFs, resulting from the synchronization and having components of dominant geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) and m/n = 6/2 potential fluctuations, are found at the same frequency as that of the magnetic fluctuations of m/n = 6/2 (m and n are poloidal and toroidal mode numbers, respectively). The temporal evolutions of the MSEFs and the magnetic fluctuations clearly show the frequency entrainment and the phase lock between the GAM and the m/n = 6/2 magnetic fluctuations. The results indicate that GAMs and magnetic fluctuations can transfer energy through nonlinear synchronization. The nonlinear coupling analyses show that the MSEFs couple to turbulence and low frequency zonal flows (LFZFs). This suggests that the MSEFs may contribute to the LFZF formation, reduction of turbulence level, and thus confinement regime transitions. The analysis of the envelope modulation demonstrates that both the MSEFs and the LFZFs modulate the turbulence while the MSEFs are modulated by the LFZFs.

The first Lower Hybrid (LH) experiments were carried out with a Passive-Active Multijunction (PAM) launcher in H-mode plasmas. The experiments were performed on the HL-2A tokamak with the new 3.7 GHz LHCD system, installed and tested by SWIP in collaboration with CEA/RFM. The ELMs and local gas impact on LH power coupling was studied in the experiments. The coupled LH power in HL-2A was 200-500kW at large gap at the first experiments and reaches 900 kW now in H-mode, while it reaches 1MW in L-mode. The LH experiments on HL-2A show that the PAM launcher is a viable concept for high performance scenarios. The LH power can be coupled at large plasma-launcher gap, and assist in triggering and sustaining H-modes. Finally, an overview of the RF heating systems for the tokamak HL-2M is given. HL-2M will dispose of a 4 MW LH system and a 8 MW ECRH system, both of which are currently under installation at SWIP.

Non-linear interaction between the internal kink mode and toroidal plasma rotation is numerically studied using the MARS-Q code [Liu et al., Phys. Plasmas 20, 042503 (2013)]. Simulation results show core plasma flow damping due to various toroidal torques, generated by a weakly stable internal kink mode. The 3-D field perturbation induced torques, including the neoclassical toroidal viscous (NTV) torque, as well as that produced by the Maxwell and Reynolds stresses, act as sink terms in the toroidal momentum balance model. The NTV torque is found to play a dominant role in the flow damping in all cases considered in this study. The modification to the internal kink mode structure is observed during the flow damping. Whilst a steady state can be achieved in the coupled mode-flow evolution with a uniform initial flow, a sheared initial flow affects the linear stability of the mode and consequently changes the non-linear evolution. For cases where the steady state solution is achieved, the saturated plasma flow speed critically depends on the initial flow condition as well as the initial amplitude of the internal kink mode but is less sensitive to the on-axis safety factor q0, as long as the latter stays above 1.

We report recent experimental results from HL-2A and KSTAR on ELM mitigation by supersonic molecular beam injection (SMBI). Cold particle deposition within the pedestal by SMBI is verified in both machines. The signatures of ELM mitigation by SMBI are an ELM frequency increase and ELM amplitude decrease. These persist for an SMBI influence time τI. Here, τI is the time for the SMBI influenced pedestal profile to refill. An increase in fELMSMBI/fELM0 and a decrease in the energy loss per ELM ΔWELM were achieved in both machines. Physical insight was gleaned from studies of density and vΦ (toroidal rotation velocity) evolution, particle flux and turbulence spectra, divertor heat load. The characteristic gradients of the pedestal density soften and a change in vΦ was observed during a τI time. The spectra of the edge particle flux Γ ∼ 〈ṽrñe〉 and density fluctuation with and without SMBI were measured in HL-2A and in KSTAR, respectively. A clear phenomenon observed is the decrease in divertor heat load during the τI time in HL-2A. Similar results are the profiles of saturation current density Jsat with and without SMBI in KSTAR. We note that τI/τp (particle confinement time) is close to ∼1, although there is a large difference in individual τI between the two machines. This suggests that τI is strongly related to particle-transport events. Experiments and analysis of a simple phenomenological model support the important conclusion that ELM mitigation by SMBI results from an increase in higher frequency fluctuations and transport events in the pedestal. © 2014 IAEA, Vienna.