Extended investigations of isotope effects on ECRH plasma in LHD

Abstract

Isotope effects of ECRH plasma in LHD were investigated in detail. A clear difference of transport and turbulence characteristics in H and D plasmas was found in the core region, with normalized radius ρ<0.8 in high collisionality regime. On the other hand, differences of transport and turbulence were relatively small in low collisionality regime. Power balance analysis and neoclassical calculation showed a reduction of the anomalous contribution to electron and ion transport in D plasma compared with H plasma in the high collisionality regime. In core region, density modulation experiments also showed more reduced particle diffusion in D plasma than in H plasma, in the high collisionality regime. Ion scale turbulence was clearly reduced at ρ < 0.8 in high collisionality regime in D plasma compared with H plasma. The gyrokinetic linear analyses showed that the dominant instability ρ =0. 5 and 0.8 were ion temperature gradient mode (ITG). The linear growth rate of ITG was reduced in high D plasma than in H plasma. This is due to the lower normalized ion temperature gradient and density gradient. More hollowed density profile in D plasma is likely to be the key control parameter. Present analyses suggest that anomalous process play a role to make hollower density profiles in D plasma rather than neoclassical process. Electron scale turbulence were also investigated from the measurements and linear gyrokinetic simulations.