The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX, (Ono et al 2000 Nucl. Fusion 40 557)) routinely operates with neutral beam injection as the primary system for heating and current drive. The resulting fast ion population is super-Alfvénic, with velocities 1 < vfast/v Alfven < 5. This provides a strong drive for toroidicity-induced Alfvén eigenmodes (TAEs). As the discharge evolves, the fast ion population builds up and TAEs exhibit increasing bursts in amplitude and down-chirps in frequency, which eventually lead to a so-called TAE avalanche. Avalanches cause large (≲30%) fast ion losses over ∼1 ms, as inferred from the neutron rate. The increased fast ion losses correlate with a stronger activity in the TAE band. In addition, it is shown that a n = 1 mode with frequency well below the TAE gap appears in the Fourier spectrum of magnetic fluctuations as a result of non-linear mode coupling between TAEs during avalanche events. The non-linear coupling between modes, which leads to enhanced fast ion transport during avalanches, is investigated. © 2011 IAEA, Vienna.

Alfvén cascade modes have been found in low density, low β plasmas on the National Spherical Torus Experiment [M. Ono et al., Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)]. An extension of the theory of cascade modes which includes the coupling to geodesic acoustic modes [Breizman et al., Phys. Plasmas 12, 112506 (2005)] is shown to imply their absence for typical spherical tokamak ratios of electron thermal to magnetic energy, β. A scan in electron β confirmed a threshold for suppression of cascade modes in good agreement with theoretical predictions. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.

The effects of a sheared toroidal rotation on the dynamics of bursting toroidicity-induced Alfv́n eigenmodes are investigated in neutral beam heated plasmas on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) [M. Ono, Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)]. The modes have a global character, extending over most of the minor radius. A toroidal rotation shear layer is measured at the location of maximum drive for the modes. Contrary to results from other devices, no clear evidence of decorrelation of the modes by the sheared rotation is found. Instead, experiments with simultaneous neutral beam and radio-frequency auxiliary heating show a strong correlation between the dynamics of the modes and the instability drive. It is argued that kinetic effects involving changes in the mode drive and damping mechanisms other than rotation shear, such as continuum damping, are mostly responsible for the bursting dynamics of the modes on NSTX. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Alfv́n cascade (AC) modes are observed in the National Spherical Torus Experiment [M. Ono, Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)] reversed shear plasmas over a wide range (up to ∼25% on axis, or ∼11% at minimum q) of Β (ratio of kinetic pressure to magnetic pressure). At low Β, the AC mode spectrum shows characteristics similar to conventional tokamaks. At higher Β, distinct Β and ∇Β effects are observed in the spectrum, including a significant reduction in the relative size of the frequency sweep and a toroidal mode number dependence in the minimum mode frequency. AC mode structure is obtained using reflectometry. Fast-ion loss associated with AC mode activity is observed. AC mode polarization at the plasma edge is consistent with expectation. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) spectroscopy is shown to be usable to determine qmin at both low Β and high Β. Observed AC mode structure and frequency are found to be consistent with calculations for the same plasma conditions and geometry using the linear, ideal MHD hybrid kinetic code NOVA-K [C. Z. Cheng, Phys. Rep. 211, 1 (1992)]. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.

A fast (≤0.1 ms) and compact 'multi-colour' soft x-ray array has been developed for time and space-resolved electron temperature (Te) measurements in magnetically confined fusion (MCF) plasmas. The electron temperature is obtained by modelling the slope of the continuum radiation from ratios of the available 1D-Abel inverted radial emissivity profiles over different energy ranges, with no a priori assumptions of plasma profiles, magnetic field reconstruction constraints or need of shot-to-shot reproducibility. This technique has been used to perform fast Te measurements in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX), avoiding the limitations imposed by the well-known multi-point Thompson scattering, electron cyclotron emission and electron Bernstein wave mode conversion diagnostics. The applicability of this 'multi-colour' technique for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) mode recognition and a variety of perturbative electron and impurity transport studies in MCF plasmas is also discussed. Reconstructed 'multi-colour' emissivity profiles for a variety of NSTX scenarios are presented here for the first time. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Chirping toroidicity-induced Alfvén eigenmodes (TAEs) are destabilized during neutral beam injection on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX (Ono M. et al 2000 Nucl. Fusion 40 557)) by super-Alfvénic ions with velocities up to five times larger than the Alfvén velocity. TAEs exhibit repeated bursts in amplitude and down-chirps in frequency. Larger bursts, so-called TAE avalanches, are eventually observed and correlate with a loss of fast ions up to 30% over ∼1ms. Frequency, amplitude and radial structure of TAEs are characterized via magnetic pickup coils and a multi-channel reflectometer system. The modes have a broad radial structure, which appears to be unaffected by the large frequency and amplitude variations. However, the large mode amplitude does impact the modes' dynamics by favouring the coupling among different modes. In addition, the coupling involves kink-like modes and can therefore degrade the thermal plasma confinement. In spite of the non-linear regime characterizing the TAE dynamics, the measured properties are found to be in reasonable agreement with solutions from the ideal MHD code NOVA. © 2012 IAEA, Vienna.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has undergone a major upgrade, and the NSTX Upgrade (NSTX-U) Project was completed in the summer of 2015. NSTX-U first plasma was subsequently achieved, diagnostic and control systems have been commissioned, the H-mode accessed, magnetic error fields identified and mitigated, and the first physics research campaign carried out. During ten run weeks of operation, NSTX-U surpassed NSTX record pulse-durations and toroidal fields (TF), and high-performance ∼1 MA H-mode plasmas comparable to the best of NSTX have been sustained near and slightly above the n = 1 no-wall stability limit and with H-mode confinement multiplier H98y,2 above 1. Transport and turbulence studies in L-mode plasmas have identified the coexistence of at least two ion-gyro-scale turbulent micro-instabilities near the same radial location but propagating in opposite (i.e. ion and electron diamagnetic) directions. These modes have the characteristics of ion-temperature gradient and micro-tearing modes, respectively, and the role of these modes in contributing to thermal transport is under active investigation. The new second more tangential neutral beam injection was observed to significantly modify the stability of two types of Alfven eigenmodes. Improvements in offline disruption forecasting were made in the areas of identification of rotating MHD modes and other macroscopic instabilities using the disruption event characterization and forecasting code. Lastly, the materials analysis and particle probe was utilized on NSTX-U for the first time and enabled assessments of the correlation between boronized wall conditions and plasma performance. These and other highlights from the first run campaign of NSTX-U are described.

The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) is currently being upgraded to operate at twice the toroidal field and plasma current (up to 1T and 2MA), with a second, more tangentially aimed neutral beam (NB) for current and rotation control, allowing for pulse lengths up to 5s. Recent NSTX physics analyses have addressed topics that will allow NSTX-Upgrade to achieve the research goals critical to a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility. These include producing stable, 100% non-inductive operation in high-performance plasmas, assessing plasma-material interface (PMI) solutions to handle the high heat loads expected in the next-step devices and exploring the unique spherical torus (ST) parameter regimes to advance predictive capability. Non-inductive operation and current profile control in NSTX-U will be facilitated by co-axial helicity injection (CHI) as well as radio frequency (RF) and NB heating. CHI studies using NIMROD indicate that the reconnection process is consistent with the 2D Sweet-Parker theory. Full-wave AORSA simulations show that RF power losses in the scrape-off layer (SOL) increase significantly for both NSTX and NSTX-U when the launched waves propagate in the SOL. Toroidal Alfvén eigenmode avalanches and higher frequency Alfvén eigenmodes can affect NB-driven current through energy loss and redistribution of fast ions. The inclusion of rotation and kinetic resonances, which depend on collisionality, is necessary for predicting experimental stability thresholds of fast growing ideal wall and resistive wall modes. Neutral beams and neoclassical toroidal viscosity generated from applied 3D fields can be used as actuators to produce rotation profiles optimized for global stability. DEGAS-2 has been used to study the dependence of gas penetration on SOL temperatures and densities for the MGI system being implemented on the Upgrade for disruption mitigation. PMI studies have focused on the effect of ELMs and 3D fields on plasma detachment and heat flux handling. Simulations indicate that snowflake and impurity seeded radiative divertors are candidates for heat flux mitigation in NSTX-U. Studies of lithium evaporation on graphite surfaces indicate that lithium increases oxygen surface concentrations on graphite, and deuterium-oxygen affinity, which increases deuterium pumping and reduces recycling. In situ and test-stand experiments of lithiated graphite and molybdenum indicate temperature-enhanced sputtering, although that test-stand studies also show the potential for heat flux reduction through lithium vapour shielding. Non-linear gyro kinetic simulations have indicated that ion transport can be enhanced by a shear-flow instability, and that non-local effects are necessary to explain the observed rapid changes in plasma turbulence. Predictive simulations have shown agreement between a microtearing-based reduced transport model and the measured electron temperatures in a microtearing unstable regime. Two Alfvén eigenmode-driven fast ion transport models have been developed and successfully benchmarked against NSTX data. Upgrade construction is moving on schedule with initial physics research operation of NSTX-U planned for mid-2015.