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(IC/P-10) Progress with Helicity Injection Current Drive

T.R. Jarboe¹⁾, R. Raman¹⁾, B.A. Nelson¹⁾, M. Bell²⁾, R. Bell²⁾, D.A. Gates²⁾, P. Gu¹⁾, W.T. Hamp¹⁾, V.A. Izzo¹⁾, H.W. Kugel²⁾, R.J. Maqueda³⁾, J.E. Menard²⁾, D. Mueller²⁾, M. Nagata⁴⁾, R.G. O’Neill¹⁾, M. Ono²⁾, F. Paoletti⁵⁾, S. Paul²⁾, M. Peng⁶⁾, A.J. Redd¹⁾, S. Sabbagh⁵⁾, M.J. Schaffer⁷⁾, P.E. Sieck¹⁾, C.H. Skinner²⁾, R.J. Smith¹⁾, V. Soukhanovskii²⁾, D. Stutman⁸⁾, X.Z. Tang³⁾, L. Zakharov²⁾, NSTX Research Team^2)
 
1) University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
²⁾ Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, USA
³⁾ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
⁴⁾ Himeji Institute of Technology, Himeji, Japan
⁵⁾ Columbia University, New York, NT, USA
⁶⁾ Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA
⁷⁾ General Atomics, San Diego, CA, USA
⁸⁾ Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Abstract.  Helicity injection current drive has the potential of sustaining the currents in magnetic fusion confinement devices with much higher power efficiencies then beams or rf. Progress in developing this method on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX, major radius R_o = 0.86 m and aspect ration A = 1.25) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the Helicity Injected Torus (HIT, R_o = 0.3 m and A = 1.5) program at the University of Washington are reported. On NSTX and HIT toroidal currents of 0.4 MA and 0.25 MA, respectfully, have been achieved. The issue of closed flux generation is discussed both in terms of possible mechanisms and experimental evidence. Finally, 3D MHD simulation results are presented for a new constant-inductive-helicity-injection spheromak experiment, which is being built.

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