Roles of Toroidal Rotation at the Plasma Edge, Toroidal Field Ripple and Configuration on ELMs in the JT-60U Tokamak

Abstract

Recent experimental studies are presented regarding ELMy H-mode plasma having Type-I Edge Localized Modes (ELMs) in the JT-60U. Toroidal rotation scan experiments in inward-shifted, small-volume plasma show that the ELM energy loss decreases as the toroidal rotation at the plasma edge increases in the direction counter to the plasma current. Specifically for a large volume plasma having a toroidal field ripple of ∼2% at the plasma edge, small Type-I ELMs are observed whose ELM energy loss normalized by the pedestal stored energy is smaller than that of an acceptable ELM size in the ITER. However, the pedestal pressure tends to decrease when plasma volume increases. No remarkable effect of reduced toridal field ripple due to the installation of Ferritic Steel Tile (FSTs) inside the vacuum vessel on the JT-60U on ELMs for large volume plasma is seen in the ELM energy loss normalized by the pedestal stored energy. These new findings suggest that the toroidal field ripple itself may not directly affect the normalized ELM energy loss, and that toroidal rotation at the plasma edge as well as plasma configuration might play important roles in the prediction of ELM size in future devices.