The effect of toroidal field on the rotating magnetic field current drive in rotamak plasmas

Abstract

A rotamak is one kind of compact spherically shaped magnetic-confinement device. In a rotamak the plasma current is driven by means of rotating magnetic field (RMF). The driven current can reverse the original equilibrium field and generate a field-reversed-configuration. In a conventional rotamak, a toroidal field (TF) is not necessary for the RMF to drive plasma current, but it was found that the present of an additional TF can influence the RMF current drive. In this paper the effect of TF on the RMF current drive in a rotamak are investigated in some detail. The experimental results show that addition of TF increases the RMF driven current greatly and enhances the RMF penetration dramatically. Without TF, the RMF can only penetrate into plasma in the edge region. When a TF is added, the RMF can reach almost the whole plasma region. This is an optimal strength of toroidal magnetic field for getting maximum plasma current when Bv and radio frequency generator power are fixed. Besides driving current, the RMF generates high harmonic fields in rotamak plasma. The effect of TF on the harmonic field spectra are also reported.