Investigation of coupling of magnetohydrodynamic modes by soft x-ray computer tomography on the WT-3 tokamak

Abstract

The internal structure of the stationary m=1 and m=2 modes in an ohmic heating plasma and the double m=1 mode structure in a lower hybrid current drive plasma are investigated on the WT-3 tokamak [Maehara et al., Nucl. Fusion 38, 39 (1998)] using computer tomography after the application of the singular value decomposition to the soft x-ray signals. The results show that, in both cases, two coexisting modes have the same frequency and have a fixed mutual phase relation, indicating that two modes are coupled and rotate as one body in the toroidal direction. It is found that the mutual inductance of two loops of helical current filaments for producing magnetic islands always takes the maximum at the experimentally observed positions of two-mode structures. This result means not only that the electromagnetic coupling of two current loops is at the maximum, but also that the two loops are in the dynamically stable position.