Observations of pressure gradient driven m = 1 internal kink mode in EAST tokamak

Abstract

Pressure gradient driven m = 1 internal kink mode destabilization that follows an L-H transition is observed in the operational region of the EAST tokamak, which manifests in periodic oscillations in soft x-ray (SXR) and Mirnov coil signals. Using tomography with the high resolution soft x-ray detection array, we find that the rotation direction of the 1/1 kink mode is in the ion diamagnetic drift direction in poloidal cross-section. A large displacement of the hot core is attributable to the shift of the 1/1 internal kink mode. In contrast to stationary oscillations with fixed frequency, various frequency chirping behavior is observed with this 1/1 kink mode. Furthermore, we also occasionally observe that a 2/1 neoclassical tearing mode (NTM) is triggered by a 1/1 internal kink mode via mode coupling in a high-performance plasma. The spatial structure of a 2/2 mode, which is the harmonic mode of the 1/1 kink mode, is also presented in this paper. Large amounts of medium-Z impurities accumulate in the central plasma region where the 1/1 kink mode instability bursts. Finally, we also find that the frequency beating associated with a 1/1 kink mode is a consequence of plasma rotation. Based on all of these observations, we propose that the plasma pressure gradient, the driving force in kink modes, is plausibly the product of an intense concentration of impurities, which are related to plasma rotation.