Vanishing magnetic shear and electron transport barriers in the RFX-mod reversed field pinch.

We define the safety factor q for the helical plasmas of the experiment RFX-mod by accounting for the actual three-dimensional nature of the magnetic flux surfaces. Such a profile is not monotonic but goes through a maximum located in the vicinity of the electron transport barriers measured by a high resolution Thomson scattering diagnostic. Helical states with a single axis obtained in viscoresistive magneto-hydrodynamic numerical simulations exhibit similar nonmonotonic q profiles provided that the final states are preceded by a magnetic island phase, like in the experimen

Three-dimensional equilibria and transport in RFX-mod: A description using stellarator tools

RFX-mod self-organized single helical axis (SHAx) states provide a unique opportunity to advance 3D fusion physics and establish a common knowledge basis in a parameter region not covered by stellarators and tokamaks. The VMEC code has been adapted to the reversed-field pinch (RFP) to model SHAx equilibria in fixed boundary mode with experimental measurements as constraint. The averaged particle diffusivity over the helical volume, estimated with the Monte Carlo code ORBIT, has a neoclassical-like dependence on collisionality and does not show the 1/ trend of un-optimized stellarators. In particular, the helical region boundary, corresponding to an electron transport barrier with zero magnetic shear and improved confinement, has been investigated using numerical codes common to the stellarator community. In fact, the DKES/PENTA codes have been applied to RFP for local neoclassical transport computations, including radial electric field, to estimate thermal diffusion coefficients in the barrier region for typical RFX-mod temperature and density profiles. A comparison with power balance estimates shows that residual chaos due to secondary tearing modes and small-scale turbulence still contribute to drive anomalous transport in the barrier region. © 2011 American Institute of Physics

Helical equilibria and magnetic structures in the reversed field pinch and analogies to the tokamak and stellarator

The reversed field pinch configuration is characterized by the presence of magnetic structures both in the core and at the edge: in the core, at high plasma current the spontaneous development of a helical structure is accompanied by the appearance of internal electron transport barriers; at the edge strong pressure gradients, identifying an edge transport barrier, are observed too, related to the position of the field reversal surface. The aim of this paper is the experimental characterization of both the internal and edge transport barriers in relation to the magnetic topology, discussing possible analogies and differences with other confinement schemes