Open AccessIncreased confinement and beta by inductive poloidal current drive in the RFP
Author(s) -
J. S. Sarff,
N. E. Lanier,
S. C. Prager,
M. R. Stoneking
Publication year - 1996
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
DOI - 10.2172/419957
Subject(s) - reversed field pinch , beta (programming language) , physics , pinch , plasma , amplitude , current (fluid) , atomic physics , magnetic field , torus , plasma confinement , magnetic confinement fusion , electron temperature , electron , impurity , tokamak , condensed matter physics , magnetohydrodynamics , nuclear physics , optics , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics , geometry , mathematics , computer science , programming language
Progress in understanding magnetic-fluctuation-induced transport in the reversed field pinch (RFP) has led to the idea of current profile control to reduce fluctuations and transport. With the addition of inductive poloidal current drive in the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST), the magnetic fluctuation amplitude is halved, leading to a four- to five-fold increase in the energy confinement time to {tau}{sub E}{approximately}5 ms as a result of both decreased plasma resistance and increased stored thermal energy. The record low fluctuation amplitude coincides with a record high electron temperature of {approximately}600 eV (for MST), and beta {beta} = 2{mu}{sub 0}
/ B(a){sup 2} increases from 6% to 8% compared with conventional MST RFP plasmas. Other improvements include increased particle confinement and impurity reduction. 19 refs., 4 figs., 1 tab