Magnetic perturbation experiments on MAST L and H-mode plasmas using internal coils

Journal article, 2011

Experiments have been performed on MAST using internal (n = 3) resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) coils. The application of the RMPs to L-mode discharges has shown a clear density pump-out when the field line pitch angle at the low-field side of the plasma is sufficiently well aligned with the applied field. The application of the RMPs before the L–H transition increases the power required to achieve H-mode by at least 30%. In type I ELMing H-mode discharges, at a particular value of q95, the ELM frequency can be increased by a factor of 5 by the application of the RMPs. This effect on the ELMs and the L-mode density pump-out is not correlated with the width of the region for which the Chirikov parameter, calculated using the vacuum field, is greater than 1 but may be correlated with the size of the resonant component of the applied field in the pedestal region or with the location of the peak plasma displacement when the plasma response is taken into account.