Overview of physics basis for ITER

Mukhovatov, V.*; Shimada, Michiya; Chudnovskiy, A. N.*; Costley, A. E.*; Gribov, Y.*; Federici, G.*; Kardaun, O. J. F.*; Kukushkin, A. S.*; Polevoi, A. R.*; Pustovitov, V. D.*; Shimomura, Yasuo; Sugie, Tatsuo; Sugihara, Masayoshi; Vayakis, G.*

ITER will be the first magnetic confinement device with burning DT plasma and fusion power of about 0.5 GW. During the past few years, new results have been obtained that substantiate the confidence in achieving Q 10 in ITER with inductive H-mode operation. These include achievement of a good H-mode confinement near the Greenwald density at high triangularity of the plasma cross section; improvements in theory-based confinement projections for the core plasma; improvement in helium ash removal due to the elastic collisions of He atoms with D/T ions in the divertor predicted by modelling; demonstration of feedback control of NTMs and resultant improvement in the achievable beta-values; better understanding of ELM physics and development of ELM mitigation techniques; and demonstration of mitigation of plasma disruptions. ITER will have a flexibility to operate also in steady state and intermediate (hybrid) regimes. The paper concentrates on inductively driven plasma performance and discusses requirements for steady-state operation in ITER.