Stabilization of the external kink and control of the resistive wall mode in tokamaks

One promising approach to maintaining stability of high beta tokamak plasmas is the use of a conducting wall near the plasma to stabilize low-n ideal MHD instabilities. However, with a resistive wall, either plasma rotation or active feedback control is required to stabilize the more slowly growing resistive wall modes (RWMs). Experiments in the DIII-D, PBHX-M, and HBT-EP tokamaks have demonstrated that plasmas with a nearby conducting wall can remain stable to the n = 1 ideal external kink above the beta limit predicted with the wall at infinity, with durations in DIII-D up to 30 times τw, the resistive wall time constant. More recently, detailed, reproducible observation of the n = 1 RWM has been possible in DIII-D plasmas above the no-wall beta limit. The DIII-D measurements confirm characteristics common to several RWM theories. The mode is destabilized as the plasma rotation at the q = 3 surface decreases below a critical frequency of 1 to 7 kHz. The measured mode growth times of 2 to 8 ms agree with measurements and numerical calculations of the dominant DIII-D vessel eigenmode time constants, τw. From its onset, the RWM has little or no toroidal rotation and rapidly reduces the plasma rotation to zero. Both DIII-D and HBT-EP have adopted the smart shell concept as an initial approach to control of these slowly growing RWMs; external coils are controlled by a feedback loop designed to make the resistive wall appear perfectly conducting by maintaining a net zero radial field at the wall. Initial experiment results from DIII-D have yielded encouraging results