Extension of the operational regime in high-temperature plasmas and the dynamic-transport characteristics in the LHD

Abstract

A central ion temperature of 7 keV in a neutral beam injection (NBI)-heated plasma and a central-electron temperature of 20 keV in an electron cyclotron resonance heating plasma were achieved in the Large Helical Device (LHD) using an upgraded heating system with a newly installed perpendicular-NB injector and gyrotrons. The values of Ti and Te significantly exceeded 5.6 and 15 keV, obtained in previous experiments, respectively. High-Ti plasma was obtained using a carbon pellet injection and the kinetic-energy confinement improved by a factor of 1.5. Transport analysis of the high-Ti plasmas showed that the ion-thermal diffusivity and the viscosity were reduced after the pellet injection. Dynamic-transport analysis is applied and the transition to the ion-internal-transport barrier and back transition are discussed.