Speaker
Description
In upcoming fusion reactors, operations will be conducted in an environment dense with high-energy particles, where electron heating is the primary mechanism and collision rates are significantly reduced. The pivotal challenge is to enable the efficient transfer of energy from fast electrons to fast ions within this setting of low collision rates. In the EAST experiment under NBI heating at low density, the confinement of MeV ions has been markedly enhanced through the injection of argon. This has induced a spectrum of multi-scale instabilities, including low-n fishbone modes, long-lived modes, and high-n toroidal Alfvén eigenmodes (TAEs). The core turbulence has been notably suppressed during the onset of these multi-scale instabilities. Notably, an energy transfer from fast ions to fast electrons has been observed, characterized by an unusual off-axis peak in the hard x-ray energy spectrum. This breakthrough paves the way for innovative methods of energy transfer between fast electrons and fuel ions, which is crucial for the realization of low-collision heating conditions in future fusion reactors.
| Presentation type | Oral |
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