Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

Evidence for anomalous effects on the current evolution in the tokamak hybrid operating scenarios

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 affiliations


Alternatives 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.


PACS

52.55.Fa Tokamaks, spherical tokamaks

28.52.Nh Safety

52.25.Fi Transport properties

52.55.Wq Current drive; helicity injection

Subjects

Nuclear physics

Plasma physics

Dates

Issue 8 (August 2007)

Received 11 January 2007, accepted for publication 17 May 2007

Published 23 July 2007



  1. Evidence for anomalous effects on the current evolution in the tokamak hybrid operating scenarios

    T.A. Casper et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 825

  2. Spray etching 2 µm features in 304 stainless steel

    Sudipta Chatterjee et al 2006 J. Micromech. Microeng. 16 2585

  3. Models of coherent exciton condensation

    P B Littlewood et al 2004 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 S3597

  4. Tail states in disordered superconductors with magnetic impurities: the unitarity limit

    F M Marchetti and B D Simons 2002 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 35 4201

  5. Obituary

    2002 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 35

  6. Chapter 5: Physics of energetic ions

    A. Fasoli et al 2007 Nucl. Fusion 47 S264

  7. Asymptotic corrections to the Wigner semicircular eigenvalue spectrum of a large real symmetric random matrix using the replica method

    G S Dhesi and R C Jones 1990 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 23 5577

  8. Study of thermonuclear Alfvén instabilities in next step burning plasma proposals

    N.N. Gorelenkov et al 2003 Nucl. Fusion 43 594

  9. Optimal fluctuations and tail states of non-Hermitian operators

    F M Marchetti and B D Simons 2001 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 34 10805

  10. Large-scale synthesis and field emission properties of vertically oriented CuO nanowire films

    Y W Zhu et al 2005 Nanotechnology 16 88

Related review articles

What's this?
View review articles related to this research to gain an insight into the key trends in this subject area. Related review articles are selected based on PACS/MSC codes, and are no more than three years old.

  1. Tokamak equilibria with nearly zero central current: the current hole
  2. The CRONOS suite of codes for integrated tokamak modelling
  3. Dust in magnetic fusion devices
More

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.