Particle Confinement and Magnetic Fluctuations in Tokamak Discharges with Gas Puffing

Author: Levine, Bruce Stephen

Year: 1980

Degree: Dissertation (Ph.D.)

Advisor: Gould, Roy Walter

Committee Member: Unknown, Unknown

Option: Electrical Engineering; Applied Physics

DOI: 10.7907/rrs7-xm92

Abstract

An experimental investigation has been made of particle confinement and magnetic fluctuations associated with short (< 1 msec) gas pulses into a Tokamak discharge. The fluctuations are measured with movable pairs of magnetic probes, each containing a poloidal and radial coil and inserted into the outer regions of the plasma.

When neutral gas is added and the current channel contracts, the fluctuation spectra are dominated by an m=2 mode that grows with the classical tearing-mode rate. When the gas feed is terminated, much broader spectra of modes with m up to 15 are observed. The modal frequencies are nearly integer multiples of 11 kHz. The m=2 mode dominates the poloidal spectra, while the radial spectra have numerous modes of appreciable amplitude. Time-delay measurements suggest that many of the higher-order (m > 3) modes originate in deformation of the m=2 and m=3 magnetic islands. A strong m=7 is found to be localized near the limiter in q(a) = 3.8 discharges, hence this mode is identified as an m=7, n=2, It is found that the m=2 mode becomes destabilized for discharges for which the peak puff density approaches the upper limit given by the Murakami scaling relation. The m=2 mode grows at a rate much slower than the classical tearing-mode rate. The threshold in peak puff density for this destabilization coincides with a degradation in particle confinement.

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