Study of electric currents excitation in the plasma of the L-2M stellarator with its electronic cyclotronic creation and heating

Abstract

The results of measuring the longitudinal electric current excited in the toroidal plasma of the L-2M stellarator as a result of powerful pulsed microwave heating (power up to 600 kW, pulse duration up to 20 ms) are presented. In the experi-ments, to create and heat plasma in the stellarator, microwave radiation of gyro-trons with a frequency of 75 GHz, equal to the frequency of the 2nd harmonic of electron cyclotron resonance for a magnetic field with induction B = 1.34 T at the center of the plasma column, was used. To measure the currents in the plasma, di-agnostic systems of the stellarator were used, designed to record changes in time of the transverse and poloidal magnetic fields. It is shown that the presence of an ohmic heating iron transformer in the stellarator design significantly affects the temporal development of equilibrium currents due to the significant inductance of the toroidal plasma. When compensating the inductance of these devices, the ex-pected value of the current excited in the plasma can reach a value of about 7 kA.