[en] Using laser induced fluorescence and passive spectroscopy on a magnetically confined low-temperature plasma, anomalous ion heating is observed which exceeds collisional heating from the electrons by a factor of up to five. Direct wave heating due to the 2.45 GHz microwave as well as stochastic heating by large-amplitude fluctuations could be ruled out as explanations. Good quantitative agreement is found when comparing the missing power in the ion species with heating power due to the dissipation of drift-wave turbulence. This turbulent energy transfer into the ion channel could have important consequences for the interpretation of transport in fusion plasmas.

[en] Guided by the recent experimental finding of the key role played by the ion heat channel in the transition from low (L) to high (H) confinement mode (Ryter et al 2014 Nucl. Fusion 54 083003, Schmidtmayr et al 2018 Nucl. Fusion 58 056003), the present phenomenological model of the power threshold for the L-H transition is developed by combining the energy equipartition between electrons and ions, and the L-mode scaling of the energy confinement time. This heuristic model describes with continuity the transition of the power threshold from the low- to the high-density branches and clarifies the origin of the main dependence of the power threshold on the plasma current in the low density branch. (letter)

[en] In the stellarator TJ-K, overdense low-temperature plasmas are created by means of microwaves at 2.45 GHz. Extensive studies have been carried out to understand the heating process. The plasma breakdown at the cyclotron resonance layer has been directly observed with a multiple Langmuir probe array. Profile measurements indicate power deposition at the plasma boundary, where the upper hybrid resonance (UHR) is located. This result is confirmed by full-wave simulations which emphasize the importance of the vacuum vessel to increase the absorbed microwave power due to multiple reflections. Further indications for heating at the UHR layer are found by measurements of the wave electric field of the incident microwave and by power-modulation experiments. In contrast to similar experiments, no indication for heating by electron Bernstein waves was found.

[en] The three-dimensional structure of drift-wave turbulence and turbulent transport is investigated in plasmas of the stellarator experiment TJ-K. By means of two poloidal Langmuir probe arrays placed at different toroidal positions, density and potential fluctuations are recorded simultaneously at 128 positions on a single flux surface. From these data, the spatial drift-wave turbulence pattern including perpendicular and parallel structure sizes are obtained using a cross-correlation technique. A comparison with the magnetic field structure indicates an initially perfect alignment of turbulent structures with magnetic field lines. Passing over regions with different field-line pitches according to the local variation of the rotational transform, however, results in a measured displacement of turbulent structures with respect to the field lines during their radial propagation. A reduction in the perpendicular correlation lengths in regions of high absolute values of local magnetic shear is found. Prominent and poloidally narrow turbulent transport maxima are measured at different toroidal positions. They are connected by the magnetic field lines and located in regions of negative normal curvature. The poloidal propagation pattern of turbulent structures and the exact position of the transport maximum depend on the magnetic field direction. (paper)

[en] The behaviour of profiles and gradients of electron density, temperature and pressure at the edge of ASDEX Upgrade was studied in regimes with type-I and small edge localized modes (ELMs) of discharges with and without applied magnetic perturbations (MPs). Estimation of the edge kinetic parameters was performed by means of integrated data analysis for joint reconstruction of electron density and temperature profiles via combination of data from different diagnostics. The MP fields for ELM mitigation were produced by 16 in-vessel coils allowing to execute this survey with large variations in poloidal spectrum and resonant component of the error field. With several dedicated discharges the effect of MPs on the edge kinetic data and ELMs was determined in dependence of heating power, gas puff and MP-coil configuration. Small ELMs are dominant—with and without MPs—in regimes with reduced pedestal top electron temperatures and flattened edge electron pressure gradients compared to type-I ELM phases. Furthermore, application of MPs opens an additional small ELM regime in the high temperature range at reduced electron pressure gradient. (paper)

[en] In the tokamak ASDEX Upgrade the influence of a non-axisymmetric n = 2 error field on the turbulence in the far scrape-off layer of a low density L-mode discharge has been studied. There is no density pump-out with the non-axisymmetric perturbation but an increase of the scrape-off layer density at the outer midplane. While the relative ion saturation current fluctuation level in the far scrape-off layer is decreasing, the skewness rises and especially the excess kurtosis grows by a factor of 1.5-3. The frequency of intermittent events (blobs) is increasing by 50 %. Also the poloidal velocity grows with the magnetic perturbation while the typical turbulent structure size becomes smaller by a factor 5-10 about 20-25 mm outside the separatrix. The local spectral density has been calculated from a two-point measurement of the ion saturation current. It is used to derive a dispersion relation. Two poloidal propagation velocities depending on the wave number have been found. One is an upper limit for the bulk E x B velocity and the second one the lower limit of the phase velocity. There is a significant contribution of the phase velocity to the propagation speed in the far scrape-off layer. (copyright 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)

[en] Analyses of non-linear interactions in drift-wave turbulence were carried out in wavenumber space on experimental data obtained from multi-probe measurements in the toroidally confined plasma of the stellarator TJ-K. Recent results are reported. The inverse cascade of energy from small to large scales as typical for two-dimensional turbulence is verified. The transfer in k space is found to be governed by non-local processes. The same way, large-scale zonal flows (ZFs) are found to tap energy from small-scale turbulence, as consistent with the vortex-thinning mechanism. An enhancement of the correlation between ZF shear and Reynolds stress as a source of ZF energy is observed, when strong background shear flows are imposed, which comes along with increased long-range correlations.

[en] Filaments of increased pressure (‘blobs’) in the scrape-off layer of toroidally confined magnetized plasmas are studied in the context of fusion research due to their relevance for confinement and wall safety. Analytical models in simple toroidal magnetic field geometries have proven useful to get a quantitative understanding of blob dynamics in tokamaks. However, their direct applicability to the more complicated stellarator geometry is far less studied. The experiments presented here show that in the stellarator TJ-K blobs are field-aligned structures occurring in scrape-off layer regions of negative mean normal curvature, which is in agreement with common blob models. Furthermore, it is shown that in TJ-K, in accordance with findings from tokamaks, blobs account for a significant fraction of the turbulent scrape-off layer transport of the order of several tens of percent. (paper)

[en] The ITPA multi-machine confinement database has been recently extended, in particular to account for the effect of the metallic plasma facing components installed in the ASDEX Upgrade and JET tokamaks during the last decade. Confinement data from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak have been contributed to the ITPA confinement database since 1994. The present version, which includes data from 1994 to 2017, is described and discussed in this article. The aim of this work is to document the database before it is made public and report on the main results on the confinement properties reflected in this database. Through the transition from carbon to metallic wall, the operation at low density originally accessible with the carbon wall, has been strongly limited by the occurrence of tungsten accumulation. However, at medium and high densities, the confinement properties with the carbon and metallic walls are rather similar. The database analysis yields in both cases a rather strong plasma current dependence and a clearly negative magnetic field dependence. The density dependence is negligible, while the well-known positive impact of triangularity appears very clearly. These dependences are partly at variance with the widely-used IPB98(y,2) confinement scaling, but in agreement with the analysis of the upgraded ITPA multi-machine and JET databases. The confinement degradation observed at high density with strong gas puffing can be clearly attributed to the density profile in the outer plasma region, as reported in previous studies. (paper)

[en] In this work we carry out quantitative measurements of particle and heat transport associated to SOL filaments in a tokamak, and relate density shoulder formation to the advection of energy in the far SOL. For the first time, this attempt includes direct measurements of ion and electron temperatures for background and filaments. With this aim, we combine data from a number of equivalent L-mode discharges from the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak in which different probe heads were installed on the midplane manipulator. This approach is validated by a comparison with independent diagnostics. Results indicate an increase of heat transport associated to filaments after the shoulder formation. Several centimeters into the SOL, filaments are still found to carry a substantial fraction (up to one fifth) of the power ejected at the separatrix. (paper)