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Mercier Stability Improvement in Nonlinear Development of LHD Plasma

Katsuji ICHIGUCHI and Benjamin A. CARRERAS¹⁾

National Institute for Fusion Science, 322-6 Oroshi-cho, Toki 509-5292, Japan

1)

BACV Solutions Inc., 110 Mohawk, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, USA

(Received 16 November 2007 / Accepted 10 January 2008 / Published 25 June 2008)

Abstract

A stable path to high-beta plasmas is investigated for an inward-shifted LHD configuration. An improvement of Mercier stability is observed due to the nonlinear saturation of the resistive interchange modes. For this study, a multi-scale numerical scheme is used. In this scheme, the beta value is increased by adding a small pressure increment to the background pressure. We focus on the dependence of the Mercier stability on the profile of the pressure increment. It is found that the total pressure profile approaches a profile marginally stable to the Mercier criterion when the pressure increment has a fixed profile.

Copyright (c) 2008 The Japan Society of Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research

Keywords

MHD, LHD, multi-scale simulation, Mercier criterion, interchange mode, nonlinear saturation, self-organization

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.3.S1033

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References

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This paper may be cited as follows:

Katsuji ICHIGUCHI and Benjamin A. CARRERAS, Plasma Fusion Res. 3, S1033 (2008).