2024 – High-power helicon experiments in H-mode plasmas

High-power helicon experiments in H-mode plasmas

2024 Research Campaign, Heating and Current Drive

Purpose of Experiment

The purpose of this experiment is to measure the efficiency of helicon current drive in the most usual type of operating mode of the DIII-D tokamak, which is the High-confinement mode, H-mode for short. The “helicon” system launches electromagnetic waves at 476 MHz into the plasma, with most of the wave power propagating in one direction along the torus, in such a way as to drive a toroidal current around the machine. This experiment is intended to measure that “non-inductive current drive” efficiency, in terms of the amount of current driven per launched unit of wave power. This current drive efficiency has never been measured for waves of this polarization and frequency range in a tokamak plasma.

Experimental Approach

The helicon system’s antenna can launch waves in either direction around the torus; in one direction, the driven current adds to the pre-existing current (referred to as “co-current drive”), while in the opposite direction, the driven current is in the opposite direction as the pre-existing current (“counter-current drive”). The basic approach of this experiment involves setting up the helicon system for co-current drive and measuring the resulting currents with the Motional Stark Effect (MSE) diagnostic system. This is the goal of the first half-day of the experiment. Between the two half-days of the experiment, the helicon antenna is reconfigured for counter-current drive, and in the second half-day, the plasma is reproduced as nearly as possible, except with counter-current drive from the helicon. By subtracting the results of the counter-current cases from the co-current cases, the size of the signal should be roughly doubled, enabling an increase in the signal-to-noise ratio of what is predicted to be a small signal on the MSE measurements. In order to help calibrate the results, we also plan to do shots without helicon power with Electron Cyclotron Current Drive (ECCD) instead, at a similar power level as the helicon cases, which amounts to a single mm-wave source (gyrotron) at about a power level of 500 kW. The ECCD launcher can be reconfigured from co-current drive to counter-current drive between shots, so the comparison cases with ECCD can be done in the same half-day, the second one in this proposal. The expectation for central current drive (near the center of the plasma where the temperature is highest) is that ECCD and helicon current drive efficiency will be comparable. However, the fraction of the launched EC power that reaches the location in the plasma where the power is absorbed and the current is driven is known from previous work to be close to one. The corresponding fraction for the helicon case is not known, so that the measured current drive efficiency can give an indication of that unknown loss fraction.

Interested in a behind-the-scenes look at DIII-D? Join us for a virtual OR in-person tour during Fusion Energy Week (May 5-9)! Sign up for a tour here.

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