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(EXP4/08) High Harmonic Fast Wave Heating Experiments on NSTX

J. R. Wilson¹⁾, R. Bell¹⁾, M. Bitter¹⁾, P. T. Bonoli²⁾, M. D. Carter³⁾, D. Gates¹⁾, J. C. Hosea¹⁾, B. LeBlanc¹⁾, R. Majeski¹⁾, T. K. Mau⁴⁾, J. Menard¹⁾, D. Mueller¹⁾, S. Paul¹⁾, C. K. Phillips¹⁾, R. I. Pinsker⁵⁾, A. Rosenberg¹⁾, P. Ryan³⁾, S. A. Sabbagh⁶⁾, D. Stutman⁷⁾, D. Swain³⁾, Y. Takase⁸⁾, J. Wilgen^3)
 
1) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton NJ, USA
²⁾ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA, USA
³⁾ Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge TN, USA
⁴⁾ University of California at San Diego, San Diego CA, USA
⁵⁾ General Atomics, San Diego CA, USA
⁶⁾ Columbia University, New York NY, USA
⁷⁾ Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD, USA
⁸⁾ University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract.  A radio frequency (rf) system has been installed on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) with the aim of heating the plasma and driving plasma current. The system consists of six rf transmitters, a twelve element antenna and associated transmission line components to distribute and couple the power from the transmitters to the antenna elements in a fashion to allow control of the antenna toroidal wavenumber spectrum. To date, power levels up to 3.85 MW have been applied to the NSTX plasmas. The frequency and spectrum of the rf waves has been selected to heat electrons via Landau damping and transit time magnetic pumping. The electron temperature has been observed to increase from 400 to 900 eV with little change in plasma density resulting in a plasma stored energy of 59 kJ , a toroidal beta, $\beta_{\mathrm{T}}^{}$ = 10% and a normalized beta, $\beta_{\mathrm{n}}^{}$ = 2.7.

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