Magnetic Field and Force of Helical Coils for Force Free Helical Reactor (FFHR)

The electromagnetic force on a helical coil becomes smaller by decreasing the coil pitch parameter which is the angle of the coil to the toroidal direction. This makes it possible to enlarge the central toroidal field or to simplify the supporting structures of the coil. The plasma minor radius, however, becomes smaller with the pitch parameter, and a higher field is necessary to attain the same plasma performance. Another important item in a helical reactor is the distance between the helical coil and the plasma to gain enough space for blankets. In order to reduce the mass of the coil supports, a lower aspect ratio is advantageous, and an optimum value of the pitch parameter will exist around 1.2 and 1.0 for the helical systems of the pole numbers of 2 and 3, respectively

Relationships between the Prediction of Linear MHD Stability Criteria and the Experiment in LHD

We analyze the relationship between the experimentally observed pressure gradients at resonant rational surfaces and the theoretically predicted ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) unstable region of global modes in the large helical device (LHD). According to the stability analysis of the ideal MHD modes with a low toroidal mode number, we find that the ideal MHD mode gives a constraint on the operational regime of the pressure gradients in the core. In the edge, a clear saturation of the pressure gradients due to the ideal MHD instability has not been observed up to the high beta regime around 3% as the volume-averaged toridal beta value, where global ideal MHD modes are predictedto be unstable

Improved Three-Dimensional CCS Method Analysis for the Reconstruction of the Peripheral Magnetic Field Structure in a Finite Beta Helical Plasma

In the previous 3D Cauchy-condition surface (CCS) method analysis to reconstruct the magnetic field profile in the Large Helical Device (LHD), one assumed an impractically large number of magnetic sensors, i.e., 440 field sensors and 126 flux loops. In the singular value decomposition (SVD) process employed in the CCS method, a gap is found in the magnitude of the singular values. The most accurate field results can be obtained if all the singular values smaller than the gap threshold are eliminated, independent of the number of boundary elements on the CCS and the number of sensors as well. With the reduction in the number of boundary elements, the required numbers of field sensors and flux loops are significantly reduced to 110 and 25, respectively, without losing the solution accuracy. They can be further reduced to 58 and 13 respectively if considering the symmetry of the field profile in the LHD. This result suggests the possibility of actual application to the LHD

Self-Sustained Divertor Oscillation Driven by Magnetic Island Dynamics in Torus Plasma

A new type of self-sustained divertor oscillation is discovered in the Large Helical Device stellarator, where the peripheral plasma is detached from material diverters by means of externally applied perturbation fields. The divertor oscillation is found to be a self-regulation of an isolated magnetic field structure (the magnetic island) width induced by a drastic change in a poloidal inhomogeneity of the plasma radiation across the detachment-attachment transitions. A predator-prey model between the magnetic island width and a self-generated local plasma current (the bootstrap current) is introduced to describe the divertor oscillation, which successfully reproduces the experimental observation

Onset of instability with collapse observed in relatively high density and medium beta regions of LHD

Edge MHD instabilities with pressure collapse are found in relatively high beta and low magnetic Reynolds number regions with a magnetic axis torus outward-shifted configuration of the large helical device (LHD), and characteristics and onset conditions of the instability are investigated. The instability has a radial structure with an odd parity around the resonant surface, which is different from that of the interchange instability typically observed in the LHD. The onset condition dependence on the magnetic axis location shows that the onset beta increases as the magnetic axis location moves more torus inwardly, and the instability appears only in limited configurations where the magnetic axis is located between 3.65 and 3.775 m. In such configurations, the resonant surface location is close to an index of the plasma boundary. This fact suggests that the distance between the resonant surface location and the plasma boundary plays an important role in the onset, and a possibility that the instability is driven by an external mode

Developments of frequency comb microwave reflectometer for the interchange mode observations in LHD plasma

We have upgraded the multi-channel microwave reflectometer system which uses a frequency comb as a source and measure the distribution of the density fluctuation caused by magneto-hydro dynamics instability. The previous multi-channel system was composed of the Ka-band, and the U-band system has been developed. Currently, the U-band system has eight frequency channels, which are 43.0, 45.0, 47.0, 49.0, 51.0, 53.0, 55.0, and 57.0 GHz, in U-band. Before the installation to the Large Helical Device (LHD), several tests for understanding the system characteristics, which are the phase responsibility, the linearity of output signal, and others, have been carried out. The in situ calibration in LHD has been done for the cross reference. In the neutral beam injected plasma experiments, we can observe the density fluctuation of the interchange mode and obtain the radial distribution of fluctuation amplitude

Experimental study of non-inductive current in Heliotron J

It is important to control non-inductive current for generation and steady-state operation of highperformance plasmas in toroidal fusion devices. Helical devices allow dynamic control of non-inductivecurrent through a wide variety of magnetic configurations. The reversal of non-inductive current consisting of bootstrap current and electron cyclotron driven current in electron cyclotron heating plasmas has been observed in a specific configuration at low density in Heliotron J device. By analyzing thenon-inductive current for normal and reversed magnetic fields, we present experimental evidence for the reversal of bootstrap current. Our experiments and calculations suggest that the reversal is caused bya positive radial electric field of about 10 kV/m. Moreover, we show that the typical electron cyclotron current drive efficiency in Heliotron J plasma is about 1.0 × 1017 AW?1m?2, which is comparable to other helical devices. We have found that the value is about 10 times lower than that of tokamak devices. This might be due to an enhanced Ohkawa effect by trapped particles

Drift stabilization of ballooning modes in a high-⟨β⟩\langle \beta \rangle LHD configuration

Ideal MHD yields at best inconclusive predictions about the stability of the LHD heliotron for $\langle \beta \rangle \geq 3\%$. We investigate the impact of the drift stabilization of ballooning modes for the inward shifted LHD configuration (vacuum magnetic axis $R_0 \sim 3.5m$). The background equilibrium is considered anisotropic in which the neutral beam ions contribute about $1/4$ fraction of the total diamagnetic beta, $\langle \beta_{dia} \rangle$. A drift corrected ballooning mode equation obtained from the linearized gyrokinetic equation is expanded assuming that the hot particle drifts are much larger than the mode frequency. The fast particle pressure gradients contribute weakly to both the instability drive and the diamagnetic drift stabilization (which is dominated by the thermal ion diamagnetic drifts) for $\langle \beta_{dia} \in [0,4.8] \%$. In the single fluid limit (diamagnetic drifts ignored), the thermal pressure gradients drive ballooning modes in a broad region encompassing the outer $60-90 \%$ of the plasma volume at $\langle \beta_{dia} \rangle \approx 4.8 \%$. To stabilize these modes, we find that diamagnetic drift corrections must be invoked (mainly due to the thermal ions). The energetic ion diamagnetic drifts play a role only for low wave number values, $k_{\alpha}\leq 8$. It has been verified that the fast particle drift ordering imposed by the model is amply satisfied for on-axis hot particle to thermal density $N_{h0}/N_{i0} \approx 1\%$ even at high $\langle \beta_{dia} \rangle$

Calibrations of Fast Ion Flux Measurement Using a Hybrid Directional Probe

A hybrid directional probe method both “thermal and Langmuir probe” was applied for fast ion measure- ments in the compact helical system. In order to obtain absolute values of fast ion density and power density, a calibration of the probe was performed using neutral hydrogen beam and a mixture beam of hydrogen and proton, of which beam current and energy were controlled. The conversion factor from temperature increase of the probe head to local power density and secondary electron emission yield was obtained. The density of fast ions was obtained by directional thermal probe (DTP) method inside the last closed flux surface, and the density ratio was nFastIon/nBulkPlasma = 2.7 × 10?3 at r/a = 0.9. The observation of the directional Langmuir probe (DLP) method is consistent with the DTP results

MHD stability of JT-60SA operation scenarios driven by passing energetic particles for a hot Maxwellian model

We analyze the effects of the passing energetic particles on the resistive ballooning modes (RBM) and the energetic particle driven modes in JT-60SA plasma, which leads to the prediction of the stability in N-NBI heated plasma. The analysis is performed using the code FAR3d that solves the reduced MHD equations describing the linear evolution of the poloidal flux and the toroidal component of the vorticity in a full 3D system, coupled with equations of density and parallel velocity moments for the energetic particle (EP) species assuming an averaged Maxwellian EP distribution fitted to the slowing down distribution, including the effect of the acoustic modes. The simulations show the possible destabilization of a $3/2-4/2$ TAE with a frequency (f) of 115 kHz, a $6/4-7/4$ TAE with f = 98 kHz and a 6/4 or 7/4 BAE with f = 57 kHz in the ITER-like inductive scenario. If the energetic particle β increases, beta induced Alfven Eigenmodes (BAE), toroidal AEs (TAE) and elliptical AEs (EAE) are destabilized between the inner-middle plasma region, leading to the overlapping of AE of different toroidal families. If these instabilities coexist in the non-linear saturation phase the EP transport could be enhanced leading to a lower heating efficiency. For a hypothetical configuration based on the ITER-like inductive scenario but an center peaked EP profile, the EP β threshold increases and several BAEs are destabilized in the inner plasma region, indicating an improved AE stability with respect to the off-axis peaked EP profile. In addition, the analysis of a hypothetical JT-60SA scenario with a resonant q = 1 in the inner plasma region shows the destabilization of fishbones-like instabilities by the off-axis peaked EP profile. Also, the EPs have a stabilizing effect on the RBM, stronger as the population of EP with low energies (below 250 keV) increases at the plasma pedestal