Experimental study of magnetic reconnection during a sawtooth crash in a high temperature tokamak plasma

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection is investigated in high temperature TFTR tokamak plasmas by a set of non-perturbative diagnostics. During the crash phase of sawtooth oscillations in the plasma discharges, the ECE (electron cyclotron emission) diagnostic measures a fast flattening of the 2-D electron temperature profile in a poloidal plane, an observation consistent with the Kadomtsev reconnection theory. On the other hand motional Stark effect(MSE) measurements indicate that central q values do not relax to unity after the crash, but increase only by 5-10%, typically from 0.7 to 0.75. The latter result is in contradiction with the models of Kadomtsev and/or Wesson. A heuristic model for the magnetic reconnection at the sawtooth crash is also presented.