Adam Lewis Rosenberg

High-Harmonic Fast-Wave heating in NSTX

High-Harmonic Fast-Wave (HHFW), a radio-frequency technique scenario applicable to high-beta plasmas, has been selected as one of the main auxiliary heating systems on NSTX. The HHFW antenna assembly comprises 12 toroidally adjacent current elements, extending poloidally and centered on the equatorial plane. This paper reviews experimental results obtained with a symmetrical (vacuum) launching spectrum with k∥=14 m−1 at a frequency of 30 MHz. We describe results obtained when HHFW power is applied to helium and deuterium plasmas, during the plasma-current flattop period of the discharge. Application of 1.8-MW HHFW pulse to MHD quiescent plasmas resulted in strong electron heating, during which the central electron temperature, Teo more than doubled from ≈0.05 keV to 1.15 keV. In deuterium plasmas, HHFW heating was found less efficient, with a Teo increase of the order of 40% during a 1.8-MW HHFW pulse, from ≈400 eV to ≈550 eV. (At HHFW power of 2.4 MW, Teo increased by 60%, reaching 0.625 keV.) HHFW heati...

Loading and Asymmetry Measurements and Modeling for the National Spherical Torus Experiment Ion Cyclotron Range of Frequencies System

The ion cyclotron heating and current drive system on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has delivered over 3 MW reliably for pulse lengths over 100 ms with various phasings of the antennas. A circuit model of the system that includes the 12 coupled antennas and six radio-frequency sources has been developed that gives good agreement with vacuum measurements. When it is used to experimentally determine the S-matrix of the system under different plasma conditions, pronounced asymmetries in the off-diagonal values of the S-matrix are seen. The S-matrix in the presence of plasma has been calculated with the RANT3D code using measured edge density profiles in front of the antenna; these agree remarkably well with the measurements. The asymmetry is caused primarily by the large pitch angle of the magnetic field in front of the antenna, coupled with the gradients in the plasma edge.