Investigation of the compatibility of pellet fueling with ELM-free H-mode plasmas in EAST tokamak

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Experiments on pellet fueling have been carried out in edge localized mode (ELM)-free high-confinement mode (H-mode) plasmas with q 95 ∼ 6 in the EAST tokamak. Cryogenic deuterium pellets were injected into the ELM-free plasmas at a frequency of 10 or 5 Hz from ∼45 cm above the mid-plane on the low-field side. It is found that the ELM-free H-mode plasmas are still sustained even if both the edge and core plasma are impacted by the pellet injections (PIs). Several small ELMs would appear and the edge coherent mode accompanying the ELM-free phase fades or even disappears just after the pellet events, but the plasma would rapidly recover to the ELM-free state. Although the ELMing phase is very short, it may be an issue that still needs to be resolved in the future. Meanwhile, the 3/2 tearing mode often appearing in ELM-free discharges would be stabilized by the PIs, and the high-Z impurity concentration would be reduced during the PIs. All these results will be meaningful to International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor and future fusion reactors.