Heating of toroidal plasmas in universities in Japan

Experimental studies on heating of toroidal plasmas in universities in Japan are summarized. In Japan major fusion activities in universities are oriented to the development of so-called alternative concepts, that could remove some of the difficulties such as pulse operation, complicated structure, and low plasma beta, that tokamaks must overcome to develop into fusion reactors. From this point of view, the purpose of plasma heating is not only to study and develop efficient heating method for fusion plasmas in general, but also to find ways to produce high density and high temperature plasmas without the need to employ Joule-heating as in tokamak plasmas. Three major activities in the alternative concepts are Nagoya Bumpy Torus (NBT) and JIPP T-II, stellarator-tokamak hybrid, both at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Nagoya University, and Heliotron-E at Kyoto University