Survey of ICRF heating experiments and enhanced performance modes in Alcator C-Mod

Abstract

Results of ICRF heating experiments in Alcator C-Mod during the November 1994 to June 1995 campaign are summarized. Efficient heating of high-density plasmas was demonstrated with high power densities (up to volume averaged, surface averaged). These experiments were carried out with RF powers up to 3.5 MW at 80 MHz, at magnetic fields up to 8 T and plasma currents up to 1.2 MA. For on-axis hydrogen minority heating at 5.3 T, near complete absorption is achieved. Energy confinement in L-mode plasmas was found to be consistent with the ITER89-P scaling. H-mode is routinely observed when the ion drift is directed toward the X-point. The H-mode power threshold was found to scale as low as , which is a factor of two lower than the scaling observed on other tokamaks. PEP modes with highly peaked density and ion temperature profiles and highly enhanced fusion reactivity were obtained with Li pellet injection followed by on-axis ICRF heating at both (H minority heating) and 8 T ( minority heating). In H - plasmas at T highly localized direct electron heating by the mode converted ion Bernstein wave was observed. Nearly complete absorption by electrons in a small volume resulted in an extremely high electron heating power density of with .