Recent progress of RF heating plasma confinement research on EAST

In tokamak plasma, a weak or reversed magnetic shear configuration is an important candidate for the future fusion reactor, it is helpful to build a hollow current profile, establish an internal transport barrier (ITB), improve the plasma confinement, and realize the long-pulse discharge. In experiments, auxiliary heating systems, including NBI (Neutral Beam Injection), ECRH (Electron cyclotron resonance heating), ICRH (Icon cyclotron resonance heating), and LHCD (Lower hybrid current drive), are used to control the plasma current as the Ohmic current driving efficiency is limited, consequently, achieving the weak or reversed magnetic shear configuration. An improved confinement plasma operation can be obtained with these heating systems. On EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak), both of the four heating systems are applied to heat plasma. In recent experiments, optimized confinement plasma is obtained with the interaction between LHCD and ECRH, the simulation and experiments results are in good agreement. (author)