Improved confinement in L-mode JET plasmas

The JET confinement data show considerable variations of stored plasma energy W (thermal + fast ions) at fixed input power P, plasma current I, toroidal field B and plasma configuration C. The data on confinement properties, e.g. the confinement time τE or its incremental value τE(inc), derived from variations of P at fixed I, B, C thus exhibit scatter which makes the scaling of τE with P, I, B, C difficult to establish. The effects from sawteeth, from variations in the power deposition profiles and from plasma edge physics on confinement do not depend on P, I, B, C in any simple way which would permit a deduced scaling law to be identified with a single (or more) physics loss mechanism(s). In this paper we examine the response of confinement to variations in plasma configuration at fixed I and B (3 MA and 3 T). Results from global and local transport analysis are discussed in sections 2 and 3; section 4 describes the role of fast ions produced by ICRF and NBI heating. High confinement in the L-mode regime at increased plasma currents up to 6 MA is also studied, in particular the effects from sawteeth on stored energy W. Such effects increase with current and presently only predictive transport studies (section 5) can estimate what may be achieved at high current without sawteeth effects. The predictive studies also assess the benefits which may arise from an increase of the neutral beam energy at high plasma currents (section 6). The conclusions are based on extensive study of data from JET pulses with up to 14 MW of ICRH, 21 MW of NBI and 6 MW of ohmic power. None of the pulses included in the study show the sudden reduction of Dα emission characteristic of the L to H mode transition of confinement. 7 refs., 4 figs