Search

Many tokamaks have observed that sawteeth of sufficient duration may trigger neoclassical tearing modes (NTMs) that lead to plasma performance degradation. In this paper, TCV's ability to accurately control the period of individual sawteeth is exploited, using localized electron cyclotron resonance heating and current drive (ECRH and ECCD), to trigger NTMs under controlled conditions, providing an excellent environment for the study of the seeding of NTMs by sawtooth crashes. The TCV experiments show evidence of a fast formation of seed islands with poloidal/toroidal mode numbers m/n = 3/2 and 2/1 within a few tens of microseconds following the sawtooth crash. Crashes of sawteeth with a longer period duration are observed to generate larger seed islands but also increase the plasma stability to conventional tearing modes. While these two effects compete, the NTM stability is found to decrease with increasing sawtooth period. The seed island size can be reduced and, thereby, the NTM stability improved, by increasing the value of the safety factor q(95). Alternatively, NTM stability can be increased by application of preemptive ECRH at the resonant surface of the NTM. Preemptive ECRH is found to enlarge the plasma operational domain by improving the conventional tearing stability and by reducing the coupling between the driving (m/n = 1/1 or 2/2) and the driven modes (m/n = 2/1 or 3/2), resulting in smaller sawtooth generated seed islands. The efficiency of preemptive ECRH increases when sufficient ECRH power is applied in a short time interval prior to the sawtooth crash.

International audience; TCV is acquiring a new 1 MW neutral beam and 2 MW additional third-harmonic electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) to expand its operational range. Its existing shaping and ECRH launching versatility was amply exploited in an eclectic 2013 campaign. A new sub-ms real-time equilibrium reconstruction code was used in ECRH control of NTMs and in a prototype shape controller. The detection of visible light from the plasma boundary was also successfully used in a position-control algorithm. A new bang-bang controller improved stability against vertical displacements. The RAPTOR real-time transport simulator was employed to control the current density profile using electron cyclotron current drive. Shot-by-shot internal inductance optimization was demonstrated by iterative learning control of the current reference trace. Systematic studies of suprathermal electrons and ions in the presence of ECRH were performed. The L?H threshold power was measured to be ?50?75% higher in both H and He than D, to increase with the length of the outer separatrix, and to be independent of the current ramp rate. Core turbulence was found to decrease from positive to negative edge triangularity deep into the core. The geodesic acoustic mode was studied with multiple diagnostics, and its axisymmetry was confirmed by a full toroidal mapping of its magnetic component. A new theory predicting a toroidal rotation component at the plasma edge, driven by inhomogeneous transport and geodesic curvature, was tested successfully. A new high-confinement mode (IN-mode) was found with an edge barrier in density but not in temperature. The edge gradients were found to govern the scaling of confinement with current, power, density and triangularity. The dynamical interplay of confinement and magnetohydrodynamic modes leading to the density limit in TCV was documented. The heat flux profile decay lengths and heat load profile on the wall were documented in limited plasmas. In the snowflake (SF) divertor configuration the heat flux profiles were documented on all four strike points. SF simulations with the EMC3-EIRENE code, including the physics of the secondary separatrix, underestimate the flux to the secondary strike points, possibly resulting from steady-state E × B drifts. With neon injection, radiation in a SF was 15% higher than in a conventional divertor. The novel triple-null and X-divertor configurations were also achieved in TCV.

Recent experiments have been performed on the Tokamak a configuration variable (TCV) to investigate the confinement properties of high density plasmas and the mechanism behind the density limit. In a limiter configuration with plasma elongation kappa = 1.3-1.4 and triangularity delta = 0.2-0.3 the operational density range has been extended up to 0.65 of the Greenwald density at I-p = 200 kA (q(95) = 3.7) and even to the Greenwald value at low plasma current I-p = 110 kA (q(95) = 7). A transition from the linear to the saturated ohmic confinement regime is observed at high density similar to 0.4n(GW). A further density increase leads to sawtooth stabilization and is accompanied by a decrease of the energy and particle confinement times. The development of the disruption at the density limit was preceded by sawtooth stabilization. It is shown that electron cyclotron heating leads to the prevention of sawtooth stabilization and then to the increase of the density limit value.

The transport of heat and particles in a tokamak plasma with a snowflake divertor has been studied in recent TCV experiments. Estimates of the power flux onto the divertor plates are obtained from measurements with multiple infrared cameras and Langmuir probes. The studies include L- and ELMy H-mode plasmas and confirm some of the advantageous properties of the snowflake configuration, such as the distribution of the exhaust power on more strike points than the two that characterize conventional divertor configurations. Modifications of the divertor configuration from single null towards a perfect snowflake (second-order null) show that already near-snowflake configurations lead to an appreciable power flux across the region of weak poloidal magnetic field.

Measurements of various plasma parameters at the divertor targets of snowflake (SF) and conventional single-null configurations indicate an enhanced effect of the (E) over right arrow x (B) over right arrow drift in the scrape-off layer of plasmas in the SF configuration. Plasma boundary transport simulations using the EMC3-Eirene code show that the poloidal gradients of the kinetic profiles in the vicinity of the null-point of a SF divertor are substantially larger than those of a conventional single-null configuration. These gradients are expected to drive larger (E) over right arrow x (B) over right arrow flows in the SF divertor and are thought to be responsible for the formation of the double-peaked particle and heat flux target profiles observed experimentally. Experiments in forward and reversed toroidal magnetic field directions further support this conclusion. The formation of such a double-peaked profiles is enhanced at higher plasma densities and may have beneficial effects on the divertor heat loads since they lead to broader target profiles and lower peak heat fluxes.