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Electron cyclotron heating and current drive for maintaining minimumqin negative central shear discharges
- Source :
- Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. 45:1193-1208
- Publication Year :
- 2003
- Publisher :
- IOP Publishing, 2003.
-
Abstract
- Toroidal plasmas created with negative magnetic shear in the core region offer advantages in terms of MHD stability properties. These plasmas, transiently created in several tokamaks, have exhibited high-performance as measured by normalized stored energy and neutron production rates. A critical issue with extending the duration of these plasmas is the need to maintain the off-axis-peaked current distribution required to support the minimum in the safety factor q at large radii. We present equilibrium and transport simulations that explore the use of electron cyclotron heating and current drive to maintain this negative shear configuration. Using parameters consistent with DIII-D tokamak operation (Strait E et al 1995 Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 4421, Rice B W et al 1996 Nucl. Fusion 36 1271), we find that with sufficiently high injected power, it is possible to achieve steady-state conditions employing well aligned electron cyclotron and bootstrap current drive in fully non-inductively current-driven configurations.
Details
- ISSN :
- 13616587 and 07413335
- Volume :
- 45
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........bd226f8cbe7f5294811ed6aee5d5eb69