Abstract
Bursting modes, which are identified as bounce precession frequency fishbone modes, are observed on a low aspect ratio tokamak, the national spherical torus experiment (Ono M. et al 2000 Nucl. Fusion 40 557). They are predicted to be important in high current, low shear discharges with a significant population of trapped particles with a large mean bounce angle, such as produced by near tangential beam injection into a small aspect ratio device. Such a distribution is often stable to the usual precession-resonance fishbone mode. These modes could be important in ignited plasmas, driven by the trapped alpha particle population.