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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
Hiroyuki Okada, Yuki Torii, Shinji Kobayashi, Masashi Kaneko, Jun Arakawa, Hiroki Kitagawa, Takashi Mutoh, Tohru Mizuuchi, Kazunobu Nagasaki, Yasuhiro Suzuki, Yuji Nakamura, Takashi Takemoto, Satoshi Yamamoto, Hajime Arimoto, Kiyoshi Hanatani, Katsumi Kondo, Fumimichi Sano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 287-293
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1248
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A fast-ion formation and confinement experiment is performed using the ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) minority heating scheme in Heliotron J. In particular, the role of one of the Fourier components, the bumpiness, is an important issue for the design principle of the magnetic field of Heliotron J, where the particle confinement is controlled by the bumpiness. We study the dependence of the fast-ion confinement on the bumpiness using fast ions produced by the ICRF heating.High-energy ions are produced up to 10 keV by injecting an ICRF pulse into electron cyclotron heating target plasmas. Moreover, ions up to 36 keV are observed in the combination heating of ICRF and neutral beam injection (NBI), where the NBI energy is 28 keV. To clarify the role of the bumpy component for the high-energy ions, three configurations with various bumpy components are selected. The tail temperature is highest in the high bumpy case. It is considered that bumpy control is effective for the fast-ion confinement in Heliotron J. An increase of the bulk-ion temperature from 0.2 to 0.4 keV is observed during the ICRF pulse. The heating efficiency also depends on the bumpy component.