Response of temperature and density profiles to heat deposition profile and its impact on global scaling in LHD

Energy confinement and heat transport of net current-free NBI-heated plasmas in the Large Helical Device (LHD) are discussed with an emphasis on density dependence. Although the apparent density dependence of the energy confinement time has been demonstrated in a wide parameter range in LHD, the loss of this dependence has been observed in the high density regime under the specific condition. Broad heat deposition due to off-axis alignment and shallow penetration of neutral beams degrades the global energy confinement while the local heat transport maintains a clear temperature dependence lying between Bohm and gyro-Bohm characteristics. The central heat deposition inclines towards an intrinsic density dependence like τE ∝ (n-bare/P)0.6 from the saturated state. The broadening of the temperature profile due to the broad heat deposition profile contrasts with the invariant property which has observed widely as profile consistency and stiffness in tokamak experiments. (author)