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The characteristics and excitation conditions of the beta-induced Alfvén-acoustic eigenmode (BAAE) have been investigated during sawtooth-like oscillation in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST). The sawtooth-like events are triggered periodically by the double-tearing reconnection crash (DTRC), and the oscillations with period τo≥ 100 ms, where m and n are the poloidal and toroidal mode numbers respectively. The BAAE coexists with beta-induced Alfvén eigenmodes (BAEs) and reversed-shear Alfvén eigenmodes (RSAEs), and the BAAE has similar characteristics to the pairing of BAEs–RSAEs. The radial structures of the BAAE and BAEs are deformed into analogous triangle shapes along the poloidal direction, and the BAAE is located more outward with broadened radial coverage. The frequencies of the BAAE and RSAEs sweep upward synchronously with decreasing (< 1), and the BAAE can also provide valuable constraint conditions for the q-profile measurements. Furthermore, the mode structure of the BAAE is achieved experimentally with m = 4/n ≈ 4. The period τo of DTRC is an important factor, which can be adopted for evaluating the excitation conditions of BAAE; namely, the BAAE can be excited when τo achieves the threshold condition. τo increases when the total injected power of neutral beam injection (NBI) and ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) increases, where the NBI beam direction is perpendicular to the plasma current. The gradient of electron temperature at the vicinity of increases with τo, and the portion of energetic ions in the central region increases as well. Therefore, the BAAE in EAST should be excited by the special distribution of trapped energetic ions through toroidal precessional resonances, and is also an important constraint condition for the excitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) and low-frequency zonal flow (LFZF) are both observed through Langmuir probe arrays during electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) on the HL-2A tokamak edge. The radial distributions of the amplitude and peak frequency of GAM in floating potential fluctuations are investigated through rake probe arrays under different ECRH powers. It is observed that the GAM frequency would decrease and the intensity of carbon line emission would increase as the ECRH power exceeds a certain threshold. The analyses suggest that the impurity ions may play an important role in the GAM frequency at the edge region. It is also found that during the ECRH phase besides the mean flow, both GAM and LFZF are strengthened. The total fluctuation power and the fraction of that power associated with zonal flows both increase with the ECRH power, consistent with a predator–prey model. The auto- and cross-bicoherence analyses show the coupling between GAM and its second harmonic during the ECRH phase. Moreover, the results also suggest that the couplings between GAM and the components with multiple GAM frequency are strengthened. These couplings may be important for GAM saturation during the ECRH phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]