Numerical modelling and experimental study of ICR heating in the spherical tokamak Globus-M

Abstract

In spherical tokamaks the conventional ICR plasma heating has a number of specific features and therefore requires additional investigations. For this aim the modelling of wave propagation and absorption was performed by the 1-D code developed at the Ioffe institute. All possible mechanisms of RF absorption (cyclotron absorption at fundamental and second harmonics, TTMP, Landau) were taken into account. The calculations demonstrated the possibility of effective RF power absorption both by ions and electrons in a broad range of plasma parameters (including relative hydrogen concentration).The ICRH experiments were performed on the low aspect ratio tokamak Globus-M (R = 0.36 m, a = 0.24 m, B0 = 0.3–0.4 T, Ip = 0.15–0.25 MA, vertical elongation 1.2–2, at RF power input level up to 200 kW at frequencies of 7.5–9.2 MHz. A 12-channel neutral particle analyser measured simultaneously hydrogen and deuterium fluxes and relative concentration of ion components. In the experiment the ion temperature increases twice, but the ion heating efficiency depends on the location of the second hydrogen cyclotron harmonic and on the concentration of the light ion component. It is shown that the position of the second hydrogen harmonic in front of the antenna decreases the efficiency of the ion heating. The increase in H-concentration in deuterium target plasma from 10% up to 70% does not influence ion heating efficiency essentially but seems to increase it moderately. The first results on 1.5-D transport ASTRA Modelling are described. They are in reasonable agreement with experimental data. The electron heating was not detected in the experiment due to comparatively low absorbed power with respect to OH one.