MHD instabilities leading to disruptions in low beta JT-60U reversed shear plasmas

Takechi, Manabu; Fujita, Takaaki; Ishii, Yasutomo; Ozeki, Takahisa; Suzuki, Takahiro; Isayama, Akihiko; JT-60 Team

High performance reversed shear discharges with strong internal transport barrier (ITB) and flat pressure profile in the plasma core region disrupt frequently even with low beta. We analyzed MHD instabilities leading to low beta disruption with measuring fluctuations and current profile with MSE measurement. We mainly observed two type of disruptions. One is the disruption without precursor at . The other is the disruption with n=1 precursor of 100 ms. To explain these characteristics of disruption, we introduce the simple model such as, disruption occurs when the both MHD instabilities at plasma surface and at safety factor being equal to surface mode are unstable. This simple model can explain almost all observed disruption by two process. One is the surface mode triggered disruption, which occurs when qeff change, corresponding q surface at ITB layer changes discretely. The other is the internal mode triggered disruption, which occurs when corresponding q surface become unstable gradually.