Ion Heating with High-Power Perpendicular Neutral-Beam Injection in the Poloidal Divertor Experiment (PDX)

Abstract

Plasma heating by near-perpendicular injection of up to 7.2 MW of neutral-beam power has been studied in the PDX tokamak. Collisionless plasmas with centrla ion temperatures up to 6 keV have been obtained. The total plasma energy, which is dominated by contributions from beam and thermal ions, rises linearly with increasing beam power. The ion heating efficiency in PDX is comparable to the measured in the Princeton Large Torus with tangential injection.