Experiment-theory comparison for low frequency BAE modes in the strongly shaped H-1NF stellarator

S. R. Haskey, B. D. Blackwell, C. Nührenberg, A. Könies, J. Bertram, C. Michael, M. J. Hole, J. Howard

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    14 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Recent advances in the modeling, analysis, and measurement of fluctuations have significantly improved the diagnosis and understanding of Alfvén eigenmodes in the strongly shaped H-1NF helical axis stellarator. Experimental measurements, including 3D tomographic inversions of high resolution visible light images, are in close agreement with beta-induced Alfvén eigenmodes (BAEs) calculated using the compressible ideal MHD code, CAS3D. This is despite the low β in H-1NF, providing experimental evidence that these modes can exist due to compression that is induced by the strong shaping in stellarators, in addition to high β, as is the case in tokamaks. This is confirmed using the CONTI and CAS3D codes, which show significant gap structures at lower frequencies which contain BAE and beta-acoustic Alfvén eigenmodes (BAAEs). The BAEs are excited in the absence of a well confined energetic particle source, further confirming previous studies that thermal particles, electrons, or even radiation fluctuations can drive these modes. Datamining of magnetic probe data shows the experimentally measured frequency of these modes has a clear dependence on the rotational transform profile, which is consistent with a frequency dependency due to postulated confinement related temperature variations.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number095011
    JournalPlasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
    Volume57
    Issue number9
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 12 Aug 2015

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