Performance and stability limits at near-unity aspect ratio in the pegasus toroidal experiment

The Pegasus Toroidal Experiment is a mid-sized extremely-low aspect ratio (A) spherical torus (ST). It has the dual roles of exploring limits of ST behavior as A approaches 1 and studying the physics of ST plasmas in the tokamak-spheromak overlap regime. Major parameters are R 0.25 - 0.45 m, A 1.1 - 1.4, Ip <= 0.15 MA, and BT < 0.1 T. High beta plasmas are produced at very low toroidal field by ohmic heating. Values of toroidal beta > 20% have been obtained, and the operational space of beta vs Ip/aBT is similar to that observed for NBI-heated START discharges. Achievable plasma current is subject to an apparent limit of Ip/Itf ∼ 1. Access to higher-current plasmas appears to be restricted by the appearance of large internal MHD activity, including m/n=2/1 and 3/2 modes. Recent experiments have begun to access ideal stability limits, with disruptions observed as q95 approaches 5, in agreement with numerical predictions for external kink mode onset. (author)