Nuclear Fusion (Jan 2024)

High-frequency fluctuation and EHO-like mode in the H-mode pedestal on the EAST tokamak

  • K.N. Geng,
  • T. Zhang,
  • G.S. Li,
  • W.H. Ye,
  • K.X. Ye,
  • F.B. Zhong,
  • Y. Chao,
  • S.Q. Yang,
  • Lin Yu,
  • Z.Q. Zhou,
  • T.F. Tang,
  • X.X. Zhang,
  • Y.J. Yang,
  • A. Ti,
  • J.B. Liu,
  • N. Yan,
  • G.Q. Li,
  • X. Gao,
  • the EAST Team

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-4326/ad365d
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 64, no. 5
p. 056017

Abstract

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In the pedestal region of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) during high confinement mode plasma operations with radio-frequency heating, two distinct fluctuations are observed: high-frequency fluctuations (HFFs) and edge harmonic oscillation-like (EHO-like) modes. The HFFs are characterized by intermittent fluctuations with a broadband frequency range of $1{-}3{\text{ MHz}}$ and a poloidal wave number ( ${k_\theta }$ ) greater than $0.9{\text{ c}}{{\text{m}}^{ - 1}}$ . On the other hand, the EHO-like mode exhibits characteristics similar to magnetohydrodynamics (MHD)-like modes with n = 1−5 and lower poloidal wave numbers ( ${{\text{k}}_{{\theta }}} \unicode{x2A7D} 0.12{\text{ c}}{{\text{m}}^{ - 1}}$ ). During the pedestal establishing phase following the L–H transition, a significant concurrent presence of HFF and EHO-like modes in high-density pedestal regions has been noted. In this phase, the EHO-like mode not only modulates the amplitude of the HFF but also engages in nonlinear interactions. The occurrence of EHO-like mode and HFF is associated with particle transport toward the divertor, though it is notably less than that caused by edge coherent modes. During the inter-edge localized mode (ELM) period, a significant decrease in the ${D_\alpha }$ baseline is observed whenever the low frequency fluctuation (LFF) weakens and the HFF grows, prior to each large ELM. One possible explanation is that the rapid increase of $E \times B$ shear stabilizes the LFF and destabilizes the HFF, which lowers the pedestal transport and enables the further growth of the pedestal until the onset of the ELM.

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