T.A. Casper et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 825 doi:10.1088/0029-5515/47/8/013
T.A. Casper1, R.J. Jayakumar1, S.L. Allen1, C.T. Holcomb1, L.L. LoDestro1, M.A. Makowski1, L.D. Pearlstein1, H.L. Berk2, C.M. Greenfield3, T.C. Luce3, C.C. Petty3, P.A. Politzer3 and M.R. Wade3
Show affiliationsAlternatives to the usual picture of advanced tokamak (AT) discharges are those that form when anomalous thermal conductivity and/or resistivity alter plasma current and pressure profiles to achieve stationary characteristics through self-organizing mechanisms where a measure of desired AT features is maintained without external current-profile control. Regimes exhibiting these characteristics are those where the safety factor (q) evolves to a stationary profile with the on-axis and minimum q~ 1. Operating scenarios with fusion performance exceeding H-mode at the same plasma current and where the inductively driven current density achieves a stationary configuration with either small or nonexisting sawteeth should enhance the performance of ITER and future burning plasma experiments. We present simulation results of anomalous current-profile formation and evolution using theory-based hyper-resistive models. These simulations are stimulated by experimental observations with which we compare and contrast the simulated evolution. We find that the hyper-resistivity is sufficiently strong to modify the current-profile evolution to achieve conditions consistent with experimental observations. Modelling these anomalous effects is important for developing a capability to scale current experiments to future burning plasmas.
Issue 8 (August 2007)
Received 11 January 2007, accepted for publication 17 May 2007
Published 23 July 2007
T.A. Casper et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 825
Sudipta Chatterjee et al 2006 J. Micromech. Microeng. 16 2585
P B Littlewood et al 2004 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 S3597
F M Marchetti and B D Simons 2002 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 35 4201
2002 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 35
A. Fasoli et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 S264
G S Dhesi and R C Jones 1990 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 23 5577
N.N. Gorelenkov et al 2003 Nucl. Fusion 43 594
F M Marchetti and B D Simons 2001 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 34 10805
Y W Zhu et al 2005 Nanotechnology 16 88