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Plasma behaviour at high β and high density in the Madison Symmetric Torus RFP

M.D. Wyman1,6, B.E. Chapman1, J.W. Ahn1, A.F. Almagri1, J.K. Anderson1, F. Bonomo2, D.L. Brower3, S.K. Combs4, D. Craig1,5, D.J. Den Hartog1, B.H. Deng3, W.X. Ding3, F. Ebrahimi1, D.A. Ennis1, G. Fiksel1, C.R. Foust4, P. Franz2, S. Gangadhara1, J.A. Goetz1, R. O'Connell1, S.P. Oliva1, S.C. Prager1, J.A. Reusch1, J.S. Sarff1, H.D. Stephens1 and T. Yates3

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Pellet fuelling of improved confinement Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) plasmas has resulted in high density and high plasma beta. The density in improved confinement discharges has been increased fourfold, and a record plasma beta (βtot = 26%) for the improved confinement reversed-field pinch (RFP) has been achieved. At higher β, a new regime for instabilities is accessed in which local interchange and global tearing instabilities are calculated to be linearly unstable, but experimentally, no severe effect, e.g., a disruption, is observed. The tearing instability, normally driven by the current gradient, is driven by the pressure gradient in this case, and there are indications of increased energy transport (as compared with low-density improved confinement). Pellet fuelling is also compared with enhanced edge fuelling of standard confinement RFP discharges for the purpose of searching for a density limit in MST. In standard-confinement discharges, pellet fuelling peaks the density profile where edge fuelling cannot, but transport appears unchanged. For a limited range of plasma current, MST discharges with edge fuelling are constrained to a maximum density corresponding to the Greenwald limit. This limit is surpassed in pellet-fuelled improved confinement discharges.


PACS

52.55.Lf Field-reversed configurations, rotamaks, astrons, ion rings, magnetized target fusion, and cusps

28.52.Cx Fueling, heating and ignition

52.55.Wq Current drive; helicity injection

52.35.Py Macroinstabilities (hydromagnetic, e.g., kink, fire-hose, mirror, ballooning, tearing, trapped-particle, flute, Rayleigh-Taylor, etc.)

52.25.Fi Transport properties

Subjects

Nuclear physics

Plasma physics

Dates

Issue 1 (January 2009)

Received 14 July 2008, accepted for publication 18 November 2008

Published 9 December 2008



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