[en] Major fusion experiments and modeling efforts rely on joint research of scientists from several locations around the world. A variety of software tools are in use to provide remote interactive access to facilities and data are routinely available over wide-area-network connections to researchers. Audio and video communications, monitoring of control room information and synchronization of remote sites with experimental operations all enhance participation during experiments. Remote distributed computing capabilities allow utilization of off-site computers that now help support the demands of control room analyses and plasma modeling. A collaborative software development project is currently using object technologies with CORBA-based communications to build a network executable transport code that further demonstrates the ability to utilize geographically dispersed resources. Development to extend these concepts with security and naming services and possible applications to instrumentation systems has been initiated. An Information Technology Initiative is deploying communication systems, ISDN (telephone) and IP (network) audio/video (A/V) and web browser-based, to build the infrastructure needed to support remote physics meetings, seminars and interactive discussions

[en] The SSPX spheromak experiment has achieved electron temperatures of 350eV and confinement consistent with closed magnetic surfaces. In addition, there is evidence that the experiment may be up against an operational beta limit for Ohmic heating. To test this barrier, there are firm plans to add two 0.9MW Neutral Beam (NB) sources to the experiment. A question is whether the limit is due to instability. Since the deposited Ohmic power in the core is relatively small the additional power from the beams is sufficient to significantly increase the electron temperature. Here we present results of computations that will support this contention. We have developed a new NB module to calculate the orbits of the injected fast fast-ions. The previous computation made heavy use of tokamak ordering which fails for a tight-aspect-ratio device, where B_tor ∼ B_pol. The model calculates the deposition from the NFREYA package [1]. The neutral from the CX deposition is assumed to be ionized in place, a high-density approximation. The fast ions are then assumed to fill a constant angular momentum orbit. And finally, the fast ions immediately assume the form of a dragged down distribution. Transfer rates are then calculated from this distribution function [2]. The differential times are computed from the orbit times and the particle weights in each flux zone (the sampling bin) are proportional to the time spent in the zone. From this information the flux-surface-averaged profiles are obtained and fed into the appropriate transport equation. This procedure is clearly approximate, but accurate enough to help guide experiments. A major advantage is speed: 5000 particles can be processed in under 4s on our fastest LINUX box. This speed adds flexibility by enabling a ''large'' number of predictive studies. Similar approximations, without the accurate orbit calculation presented here, had some success comparing with experiment and TRANSP [3]. Since our procedure does not have multiple CX and relies on disparate time scales, more detailed understanding requires a ''complete'' NB package such as the NUBEAM [4] module, which follows injected fast ions along with their generations until they enter the main thermal distribution

[en] The pressure profile and plasma shape, parameterized by elongation (κ), triangularity ((delta)), and squareness (ζ), strongly influence stability. In this study, ideal stability of single null and symmetric, double-null, advanced tokamak (AT) configurations is examined. All the various shapes are bounded by a common envelope and can be realized in the DIII-D tokamak. The calculated AT equilibria are characterized by P₀/(l_angle)P} ∼ 2.0-4.5, weak negative central shear, high q_min (>2.0), high bootstrap fraction, an H-mode pedestal, and varying shape parameters. The pressure profile is modeled by various polynomials together with a hyperbolic tangent pedestal, consistent with experimental observations. Stability is calculated with the DCON code and the resulting stability boundary is corroborated by GATO runs

[en] Recent experiments on tokamaks around the world [1-5] have demonstrated discharges with moderately high performance in which the q-profile remains stationary, as measured by the motional Stark effect diagnostic, for periods up to several τ_R. Hybrid discharges are characterize by q_min ∼ 1, high β_N, and good confinement. These discharges have been termed hybrid because of their intermediate nature between that of an ordinary H-mode and advanced tokamak discharges. They form an attractive scenario for ITER as the normalized fusion performance (β_NH_89P/q₉₅²) is at or above that for the ITER baseline Q_fus = 10 scenario, even for q₉₅ as high as 4.6. The startup phase is thought to be crucial to the ultimate evolution of the hybrid discharge. An open question is how hybrid discharges achieve and maintain their stationary state during the initial startup phase. To investigate this aspect of hybrid discharges, we have used the CORSICA code to model the early stages of a discharge. Results clearly indicate that neoclassical current evolution alone is insufficient to account for the time evolution of the q-profile and that an addition of non-inductive current source must be incorporated into the model to reproduce the experimental time history. We include non-inductive neutral beam and bootstrap current sources in the model, and investigate the difference between simulations with these sources and the experimentally inferred q-profile. Further, we have made preliminary estimates of the spatial structure of the current needed to bring the simulation and experiment into agreement. This additional non-inductive source has not been tied to any physical mechanism as yet. We present these results and discuss the implications for hybrid startup on ITER

[en] Recent results from the SSPX spheromak experiment demonstrate the potential for obtaining good energy confinement (Te > 350eV and radial electron thermal diffusivity comparable to tokamak L-mode values) in a completely self-organized toroidal plasma. A strong decrease in thermal conductivity with temperature is observed and at the highest temperatures, transport is well below that expected from the Rechester-Rosenbluth model. Addition of a new capacitor bank has produced 60% higher magnetic fields and almost tripled the pulse length to 11ms. For plasmas with T_e > 300eV, it becomes feasible to use modest (1.8MW) neutral beam injection (NBI) heating to significantly change the power balance in the core plasma, making it an effective tool for improving transport analysis. We are now developing detailed designs for adding NBI to SSPX and have developed a new module for the CORSICA transport code to compute the correct fast-ion orbits in SSPX so that we can simulate the effect of adding NBI; initial results predict that such heating can raise the electron temperature and total plasma pressure in the core by a factor of two

[en] In recent DIII-D experiments, we concentrated on extending the operating range and improving the overall performance of quiescent H-mode (QH) plasmas. The QH-mode offers an attractive, high-performance operating mode for burning plasmas due to the absence of pulsed edge-localized-mode-driven losses to the divertor (ELMs). Using counter neutral-beam injection (NBI), we achieve steady plasma conditions with the presence of an edge harmonic oscillation (EHO) replacing the ELMs and providing control of the edge pedestal density. These conditions have been maintained for greater than 4s (∼30 energy confinement times, τ_E, and 2 current relaxation times, τ_R [1]), and often limited only by the duration of auxiliary heating. We discuss results of these recent experiments where we use triangularity ramping to increase the density, neutral beam power ramps to increase the stored energy, injection of rf power at the electron cyclotron (EC) frequency to control density profile peaking in the core, and control of startup conditions to completely eliminate the transient ELMing phase

[en] Quiescent double barrier (QDB) conditions often form when an internal transport barrier is created with high-power neutral-beam injection into a quiescent H-mode (QH) plasma. These QH-modes offer an attractive, high-performance operating scenario for burning plasma experiments due to their quasi-stationarity and lack of edge localized modes (ELMs). Our initial experiments and modeling using ECH/ECCD in QDB shots were designed to control the current profile and, indeed, we have observed a strong dependence on the q-profile when EC-power is used inside the core transport barrier region. While strong electron heating is observed with EC power injection, we also observe a drop in the other core parameters; ion temperature and rotation, electron density and impurity concentration. These dynamically changing conditions provide a rapid evolution of T_e T_i profiles accessible with 0.3 < (T_e T_i)_axis < 0.8 observed in QDB discharges. We are exploring the correlation and effects of observed density profile changes with respect to these time-dependent variations in the temperature ratio. Thermal and particle diffusivity calculations over this temperature ratio range indicate a consistency between the rise in temperature ratio and an increase in transport corresponding to the observed change in density

[en] The quiescent H (QH) mode, an edge localized mode (ELM)-free, high-confinement mode, combines well with an internal transport barrier to form quiescent double barrier (QDB) stationary state, high performance plasmas. The QH-mode edge pedestal pressure is similar to that seen in ELMing phases of the same discharge, with similar global energy confinement. The pedestal density in early ELMing phases of strongly pumped counter injection discharges drops and a transition to QH-mode occurs, leading to lower calculated edge bootstrap current. Plasmas current ramp experiment and ELITE code modeling of edge stability suggest that QH-modes lie near an edge current stability boundary. At high triangularity, QH-mode discharges operate at higher pedestal density and pressure, and have achieved ITER level values of β_PED and ν*. The QDB achieves performance of α_NH₈₉ ∼ 7 in quasi-stationary conditions for a duration of 10 tE, limited by hardware. Recently we demonstrated stationary state QDB discharges with little change in kinetic and q profiles (q₀ > 1) for 2 s, comparable to ELMing ''hybrid scenarios'', yet without the debilitating effects of ELMs. Plasma profile control tools, including electron cyclotron heating and current drive and neutral beam heating, have been demonstrated to control simultaneously the q profile development, the density peaking, impurity accumulation and plasma beta

[en] We continue to explore Quiescent Double Barrier (QDB) operation on DIII-D to address issues of critical importance to internal transport barrier (ITB) plasmas. QDB plasmas exhibit both a core transport barrier and a quiescent, H-mode edge barrier. Both experiments and modeling of these plasmas are leading to an increased understanding of this regime and it's potential advantages for advanced-tokamak (AT) burning-plasma operation. These near steady plasma conditions have been maintained on DIII-D for up to 4s, times greater than 35τ_E, and exhibit high performance with β_N > 2.5 and neutron production rates S_n ∼ 1 x 10¹⁶s^-1. Recent experiments have been directed at exploring both the current profile modification effects of electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) and electron cyclotron (ECH) heating-induced changes in temperature, density and impurity profiles. We use model-based analysis to determine the effects of both heating and current drive on the q-profile in these QDB plasmas. Experiments based on predictive modeling achieved a significant modification to the q-profile evolution [1] resulting from the non-inductive current drive effects due to direct ECCD and changes in the bootstrap and neutral beam current drive components. We observe that the injection of EC power inside the barrier region changes the density peaking from n_e/< n_e> = 2.1 to 1.5 accompanied by a significant reduction in the core carbon and high-Z impurities, nickel and copper

[en] This work demonstrates that simulations of advanced burning plasma operation scenarios can be successfully parallelized in time using the parareal algorithm. CORSICA -an advanced operation scenario code for tokamak plasmas is used as a test case. This is a unique application since the parareal algorithm has so far been applied to relatively much simpler systems except for the case of turbulence. In the present application, a computational gain of an order of magnitude has been achieved which is extremely promising. A successful implementation of the Parareal algorithm to codes like CORSICA ushers in the possibility of time efficient simulations of ITER plasmas.