Recent RF experiments and application of RF waves to real-time control of safety factor profile in JT-60U

Suzuki, Takahiro; Isayama, Akihiko; Ide, Shunsuke; Fujita, Takaaki; Oikawa, Toshihiro; Sakata, Shinya; Sueoka, Michiharu; Hosoyama, Hiroki*; Seki, Masami; JT-60 Team

A real-time control system of safety factor (q) profile was developed in JT-60. This system, for the first time, enables 1) real time evaluation of q profile using local magnetic pitch angle measurement by motional Stark effect (MSE) diagnostic and 2) control of current drive (CD) location (rhoCD) by adjusting the parallel refractive index of lower-hybrid (LH) waves through the change of phase difference (dphi) of LH waves between multi-junction launcher modules. The method for q profile evaluation was newly developed, without time-consuming reconstruction of equilibrium, so that the method requires less computational time. The system evaluates q profile within every 10ms, which is much faster than current relaxation time, typically order of 1s. Safety factor profile by the real-time calculation agreed well with that by equilibrium reconstruction with MSE. From temporal evolution of q (or current) profile, we evaluate CD location in real-time, too. The control system controls rhoCD through (or directly dphi) in such a way to minimize difference between the real-time evaluated q profile and its reference profile. The real-time control system was applied to positive shear plasmas (), having plasma current of 0.6MA, toroidal field of 2.3T, and electron density of . In order to keep good coupling of LH waves to the plasma, gap between the launcher and the plasma surface was controlled to about 0.1m. The reference q profile was set to q(0)=1.3. The real-time q profile approached to the reference after application of real-time control; the controlled q profile was sustained for 3s, which was limited by injected LH power. RF experiments in JT-60U, such as stabilization of neo-classical tearing modes, plasma startup experiments, etc., are also presented.