Influence of Rotational Transform and Magnetic Shear on the Energy Content of TJ-II Plasmas

In the magnetic configuration scans performed in TJ-II stellarator, low plasma energy content is found to be related to the presence of low order rational surfaces within the confinement region in low plasma density experiments. Plasma currents of about-1 kA (mainly bootstrap driven) can substantially increase the magnetic shear in TJ-II and under these conditions the confinement is no longer deteriorated by low order rational surfaces. Experiments with higher plasma currents (OH induced currents up to +/-10 kA) show a non-symmetric dependence on the sign of the magnetic shear. Preliminary results show a substantial improvement of the confinement in the case of negative plasma current, while minor changes are observed in the plasma energy content when positive current is induced in magnetic configurations that in vacuum exclude low order rational surfaces. (Author) 12 refs