Observation of Cocurrent Toroidal Rotation in the EAST Tokamak with Lower-Hybrid Current Drive

Abstract

Lower-hybrid waves have been shown to induce a cocurrent change in toroidal rotation of up to 40 km/s in the L-mode plasma core region and 20 km/s in the edge of the EAST tokamak. This modification of toroidal rotation develops on different time scales. For the edge, the time scale is no more than 100 ms, but for the core the time scale is around 1 s. A simple model based on turbulent equipartition and thermoelectric pinch predicts the experimental results.