Overview of operation and experiments in the ADITYA-U tokamak.

The first Indian tokamak, ADITYA, operated for over two decades with a circular poloidal limiter, has been upgraded to a tokamak named ADITYA Upgrade (ADITYA-U) to attain shaped-plasma operations with an open divertor in single and double-null configurations. Experimental research using ADITYA-U has made significant progress since the last FEC in 2016. After installation of a plasma facing component and standard tokamak diagnostics in ADITYA-U, the Phase-I plasma operations were initiated in December 2016 with a graphite toroidal belt limiter. Ohmically heated circular plasmas supported by filament pre-ionization with plasma parameters I_p ~ 80–95 kA, duration ~80–180 ms, with a maximum toroidal field ~1 T and chord averaged electron density ~2.5  ×  10¹⁹ m⁻³, have been obtained. The runaway electron (RE) generation, transport and mitigation experiments, along with magneto hydrodynamic (MHD) activities and density enhancement with H₂ gas puffing experiments were carried out in Phase-I, which was completed in March 2017. Preparation for the Phase-II operation in ADITYA-U includes calibration of magnetic diagnostics followed by commissioning of major diagnostics and installation of a baking system. After repeated cycles of baking the vacuum vessel up to ~135 °C, the Phase-II operations resumed in February 2018 and are continuing to achieve plasma parameters close to the design parameters of circular limiter plasmas, using real-time plasma position control. The plasma current has been raised to ~135 kA in Phase-II, with a maximum chord averaged electron density of ~4  ×  10¹⁹ m⁻³. Hydrogen gas breakdown has been observed in more than 2000 discharges, including Phase-I and Phase-II operations, without a single failure. Several experiments have been carried out, including the control of REs with the fuelling of supersonic molecular beam injection as well as sonic H₂ gas puffing during current flat-top, MHD mode studies using multiple periodic gas puffs, and radiative improved modes using neon gas puffs. The experimental results from Phase-I and Phase-II operations of the ADITYA-U tokamak are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]