Neutron Flux Measurements in an ICRF Mode Conversion Regime Heating Plasmas on HT-7

Ion cyclotron resonance heating experiments using antenna in the high field side (HFS) have been carried out on HT-7 in different target plasmas. Unlike a standard-mode conversion heating scheme with dominant electron heating, anomalous ion heating and DD neutron fluxes higher than those estimated from thermal ions were observed in the present experiments with the ion-ion hybrid resonant layer near the center of plasma. The features of ion cyclotron range frequency (ICRF) antenna in HFS and experiments suggest that this is most probably due to the nonlinear 3/2 harmonic deuterium heating by the mode-converted ion Bernstein wave, which could produce a high energy tail on ion energy distribution. (physics of gases, plasmas, and electric discharges)