Fast wave ion cyclotron resonance heating experiments on the Alcator C tokamak

Minority regime fast wave ICRF heating experiments have been conducted on the Alcator C tokamak at rf power levels sufficient to produce significant changes in plasma properties, and in particular to investigate the scaling to high density of the rf heating efficiency. Up to 450 kW of rf power at frequency f = 180 MHz, was injected into plasmas composed of deuterium majority and hydrogen minority ion species at magnetic field B0 = 12 T, density 0.8 ≤ /bar n/sub e// ≤ 5 /times/ 1020 m-3, ion temperature T/sub D/(0) /approximately/ 1 keV, electron temperature T/sub e/(0) /approximately/ 1.5--2.5 keV, and minority concentration 0.25 /approx lt/ /eta/sub H// ≤ 8%. Deuterium heating ΔT/sub D/(0) = 400 eV was observed at /bar n/sub e// = 1 /times/ 1020 m-3, with smaller temperature increases at higher density. However, there was no significant change in electron temperature and the minority temperatures were insufficient to account for the launched rf power. Minority concentration scans indicated most efficient deuterium heating at the lowest possible concentration, in apparent contradiction with theory. Incremental heating /tau/sub inc// /equivalent to/ ΔW/ΔP up to 5 ms was independent of density, in spite of theoretical predictions of favorable density scaling of rf absorption and in stark contrast to Ohmic confinement times /tau/sub E// /equivalent to/ W/P. After accounting for mode conversion and minority losses due to toroidal field ripple, unconfined orbits, asymmetric drag, neoclassical and sawtooth transport, and charge-exchange, it was found that the losses as well as the net power deposition on deuterium do scale very favorably with density. Nevertheless, when the net rf and Ohmic powers deposited on deuterium are compared, they are found to be equally efficient at heating the deuterium. 139 refs