Dependence of heat transport on toroidal rotation in conventional H-modes in JT-60U

Abstract

The relation between heat transport in the plasma core and the toroidal rotation profile was examined in conventional ELMy H-mode plasmas in JT-60U. Heat transport in the plasma core is not strongly influenced locally by toroidal rotation. The large increase in heat conduction imposes a resilient profile of ion temperature, under which the local effect of the toroidal rotation profile on scale length of the ion temperature gradient is very weak. Energy confinement improvement is observed with toroidal rotation which increases in the co-direction with respect to the plasma current. In this case, the increase in the ion temperature in both the plasma core and the pedestal region is observed. However, heat transport in the plasma core varies while maintaining self-similar temperature profiles as the toroidal rotation profile is varied. Pressure at the H-mode pedestal becomes slightly larger with the toroidal rotation in the co-direction. Thus, energy confinement enhanced with co-toroidal rotation is determined by increased pedestal height and reduced transport brought on by profile resilience. When pedestal temperature was fixed between the cases of co- and counter-NBI by adjusting the plasma density, identical temperature profiles were obtained in spite of totally different toroidal rotation profiles.