UC Irvine

Neutral-beam heating of plasmas in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at low preinjection densities [ne(0)≃1019 m-3] were characterized by Te(0)=6.5 keV, Ti(0)=20 keV, ne(0)=7×1019 m-3, τE=170 msec, βtheta=2, and a d(d,n)3He neutron emission rate of 1016 sec-1. The ion temperature and the deuterium-fusion neutron yields were significantly higher than for previous tokamak experiments. The low initial densities were achieved by operation of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor with low plasma currents (≤1 MA) and by extensive limiter conditioning.